Chasing After Shadows
by madxworld
Summary: When Los Angeles fell, it fell quickly. All civilization has been lost, and now all that's left for them is to survive - but with obstacles at every turn, it's not as easy as it seems (bade/puckentine).
1. Chapter 1

**note: it's been a long time since I've written for this fandom, but here I am. This is** **set after iParty with Victorious and pre-season two for plot reasons and because I like characterization at that point the best. Bade, Cade/Candre friendship, and gradual Pucketine ahead (although I've never watched Sam & Cat). some Tandre if you squint. please enjoy!**

* * *

 **May 29th, 2011** : the first outbreak

 **June 2nd, 2011** : Maine, New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania are lost + president holds a speech

 **June 7th, 2011** : Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia are lost

 **June 9th, 2011** : Virus arrives in Europe + Florida and Alabama are lost

 **June 20th, 2011** : No contact to other continents + second outbreak

 **June 24th, 2011** : Tennessee, Ohio, Kentucky, Indiana and Michigan are lost + president holds a speech

 **June 28th, 2011** : Mississippi, Louisiana, Missouri, Illinois and Wisconsin are lost

 **July 1st, 2011** : Third outbreak + Iowa, Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas and Nebraska are lost

 **July 4th, 2011** : South Dakota, North Dakota, New Mexico, Colorado, Arizona and Utah are lost

 **July 8th, 2011:** California, Wyoming, Montana and Nevada are lost

 **July 9th, 2011** : President commits suicide

 **NO MORE NEWS**.

When Los Angeles fell, it fell quickly.

It started with a couple weird stories on the news; people were getting sick with an impenetrable fever and death tolls were steadily rising. Strange videos were popping up on the internet left and right - police officers repeatedly shooting at a man who had attacked a cashier and he just wouldn't die. Cat had peered over Jade's shoulder as she played the video on her cellphone during Sikowitz's class and remembered Tori leaning back with an indifferent laugh.

" _That has to be fake_ ," she had said, shaking her head and waving a hand, " _that's impossible_."

" _Your dad's a cop, Vega, why don't you ask him about it?_ " Jade had replied sharply, but before Tori could comment Sikowitz, who had been acting strangely serious all morning, ordered Jade to put her cellphone away before he confiscated it.

No one mentioned it again after that. After all, it couldn't have been real; the internet was full of strange things made to fool people.

Eventually, more and more students stopped showing up to school. The hallways of Hollywood Arts lacked it's flare of originality - there was no music, no dance groups, and no more outdoor lunches were permitted for the safety of the students. Their principal maximized security and the days were cut shorter. Sikowitz and a few select teachers, eventually stopped coming themselves. There were rumors that the virus was going around and other rumors that parents were taking their children out of school and away from the city to go to the desert. Cat wondered where Sikowitz had gone and hoped he wasn't sick.

Riots broke out in downtown LA, patriotic citizens believing they were fighting police brutality, and the garage that Beck's father, a mechanic, owned, was broken into and set on fire. People were being told to stay in their houses unless it was absolutely necessary, and to avoid the downtown areas and even Sunset at all costs. Cat remembered everyone volunteering to help the Oliver's clean it up after the riots were over but they never ended and then the military came and they never got the chance.

The day the world ended, Cat's own mother put a hand on her shoulder just as she was about to walk out the front door to go to school, and the worried look in her eyes sent shivers down the ridges of her spine. _Don't_ , she had said, _you need to stay home today_. Cat had frowned but obliged; she had slid her backpack off her shoulder and left it leaning against the wall beside the door. Her brother hovered in the hallway, scratching at the tracemarks covering his forearms, and said nothing. She didn't ask any questions, though she had a million. Cat knew better.

She sent a group text to her friends just as the power went out and it never delivered.

* * *

Cat's father was a Lieutenant in the military.

When she was young, the Valentine's moved around a lot whenever he was stationed. Cat was born in Virginia, and lived in Florida, Chicago, Hawaii and Washington all before she turned thirteen years old. In California, her father was deployed to Pakistan and her mother guided Cat up the stairs to their new house in the suburbs of Hollywood, Los Angeles and told her: _this is our forever home_.

So when the army comes to California, their guns strapped around their torsos and held tight in their hands, securing neighborhoods outside the city with high fenced walls, soldiers came in and out of Cat's house like clockwork.

She and her brother tried to figure out what was going on, what was really going on, by listening in to their conversations on the stairwell - but her father knew them, knew they'd be eavesdropping, and trying to shelter his children from whatever this was, left the house often for days at a time without telling them much of anything at all.

"Just carry on as normal, baby girl," he'd said, bumping his knuckles on the side of Cat's cheek affectionately before walking out the front door.

But what was normal when you had no idea what was going on with your friends, and when there were armed soldiers at every corner? What was normal when they shut the power off at timed intervals? What was normal when her brother seized on their living room floor twice a week because he couldn't get what he needed to detox him from the drugs in his system?

What was normal when the dead came back?

Cat didn't really understand it, what was happening. Not really. No one did, as far as she was concerned. All of her neighbors seemed just as clueless, and the military was keeping secrets from them, including her own father.

By some miracle, two weeks later, the power switched on early in the morning and Cat finally was able to land a solid signal on her cellphone. She wasted no time calling Jade, so desperate to hear some kind of news about her best friend and the others that her knuckles turned white around her phone and her stomach curled with hope.

Jade picked up immediately.

She was with the others in Hollywood Hills about ten minutes away from her suburb and they had all been worried sick about her. With the military gating off neighborhoods, there was no way to contact each other. "We're at Vega's house," Jade said, sounding annoyed. "We're here most of the time. Not like I want to be, but there's nothing better to do."

Cat's lips tipped up into a smile. She was sat on the roof of her house, just outside her bedroom window, and soldiers were stationed just somewhere beneath her, hands at their guns and cigarettes hanging from their lips, making easy conversation with one another. Their laughs echoed, loud and dripping with superiority. The remark was so typical of Jade and her heart longed to see them all and Cat had never felt more lonely in her life. "I miss you guys! I'm so bored here without you!"

"You're on speaker, Kitten," Jade announced, and her friends bombarded her with exclamations of joy and relief and Cat thought she could cry.

After hours of talking nonsense for some sort of familiarity, Cat tucked her knees to her chest and stared out at the barren hills of her city, the sun beating down on her shoulders. "Do you think there's anyone still out there?"

There's a crackle on the other line, the reception faltering. "I don't know, Lil Red," André said, and his voice was quiet. He paused, and then;

"God help them if they are."

* * *

"Cat! Cat, wake up!"

A hand curled round her arm and shook, rousing her from sleep. Cat's groan was muffled by her pillow; she felt drowsy and not at all rested. How long had she slept for? Her eyes fluttered open and she squinted - through the cracks of her bedroom window, it was still dark out. "What?" She asked, her voice mumbled with sleep.

Her brother stopped shaking her, but he rushed to flick on his flashlight. "Dad told me to wake you up. Come on, pack some stuff. We're leaving."

"Leaving?" Cat asked, shielding her eyes from the flashlight and squinting over at him. He was rushing around her room, mumbling to himself, dumping the untouched contents of her school bag onto the floor unceremoniously and pulling open drawers. "What do you mean, leaving? Andy?"

Andrew tossed her bag at her. Cat flinched when she caught it; her thoughts were racing, question after question after question. Confusion and a building fear. "Come _on_ , Cat!" He said hurriedly. "Pack!"

It was as she was hopping out of bed that she had finally noticed the commotion downstairs. It sounded like her father, his voice loud and booming and authoritative. Her mother's quieter responses, calmer. From outside her bedroom window, she could hear the purr of the military truck engines, could hear the base's gate opening and the soldier's loud voices, but couldn't make out anything of what they were saying. Footsteps pounded up the stairs and Cat saw her father rush passed her bedroom door to his own, shouting down to his wife.

"We need to leave in ten minutes," Her father called out sternly. He was using his 'army' voice that sort of scared her. "Cat, get dressed. Be downstairs in five."

After promptly pushing Andrew out of her bedroom and slipping on a pair of ripped jeans and a tank top, Cat heeded her father's commands and packed her bag full of clothes and other important, and not-so-important, possessions. She shoved her feet into her sneakers, grabbed her cellphone, and bounded down the stairs where her family was waiting.

"Mom?" She called, her stomach churning with anxiety. Her mother was in the kitchen, shaking hands shoving pill bottles into a small bag. "What's going on?"

Her mother turned to look at Cat, standing at the bottom of the stairs with her bag slung over one arm and her red velvet hair tumbling down her shoulders in waves. There were tears in her mom's eyes, but she looked the picture of calm otherwise. "Kitty," she whispered, "baby, we have to leave the city, alright?"

"Yeah, but why?" Cat asked, her voice rising with fear. "I thought we were safe from the monsters here. Aren't we?"

"Not anymore," her father interrupted. He was in his uniform, boots heavy against the wooden floor. He turned to rest a hand on Cat's shoulder, bending slightly. Her father, like everyone in the family and nearly everyone she knew, towered over her and stood tall at six feet. "It's - complicated, Caterina. We need to get inland, to the deserts, before they start firebombing the coastal cities."

" _Richard!_ "

"We can't afford to sugarcoat it. They need to know."

"Fire-firebombing?" Cat stuttered, her stomach dropping with a sudden lurch of panic.

Her father reached to grab the keys to his truck and they dangled from his fingers. He paused, his voice looming in their kitchen. "The president is dead. We're on our own now," he said. There was another beat of silence, and Cat saw Andrew biting uncertainly at his fingernails somewhere behind her father, quiet and looking lost. Her older brother has always been lost. Cat never knew where he was, even when he was standing right in front of her. "Let's go. We're wasting time."

* * *

 **Cat [2:46 AM]:** JADE!

 **Cat [2:46 AM]:** you all need to get out of the city right now! my dad says that the army is planning on abandoning everyone!

 **Cat [2:47 AM]** : they want to firebomb major cities!

 **Jade [2:59 AM]:** What? Are you kidding me?

 **Cat [3:00 AM]:** no! you need to leave NOW

 **Jade [3:05 AM]:** We are. Where are we supposed to go, the desert?

 **Jade [3:10 AM]:** They army is already fucking leaving, what the fuck? Where are you going, kitten?

 **Jade [3:11 AM]:** CAT! WHERE!

.

.

 **Tori [3:15 AM]:** Cat! Where are you? Are u ok?

 **Tori [3:15 AM, voicemail]:** Please, Cat, call me as soon as you get this. I'm really worried.

.

.

 **Cat [3:20 AM], group message** : I don't know. I don't know. just please, please get as far away as you can.

 **Cat [3:20 AM], group message** : I love you guys.

 _ALERT: Message failed to deliver._

* * *

 **[three months later]**

Cat's fingers drummed noiselessly against the edge of an old radio dusted with dirt, the others working at the dials. There was nothing but static, static, and more crackling static. It had been the same for days on end; any hope that she had of finding some semblance of life out there - a refugee camp, maybe, or another group of survivors - was diminishing fast. After Los Angeles burned, it seemed to Cat like the rest of the world had suddenly gone quiet.

"God, that noise pisses me off," said the body across from her, knelt at the engine of a black motorcycle. They had been holed up in an old garage for days trying to make it work, and they had a breakthrough earlier that morning.

"You told me to keep trying," Cat frowned, and her fingers stopped their tapping.

Sam Puckett straightened up, her back creaking and cracking as she stretched. Her blonde hair tumbled over her shoulders in messy curls, and when she turned to look at Cat there was oil smudged over one of her cheeks. "Yeah, still pisses me off. You'd think we'd hear something by now."

Cat had found Sam the night she was separated from her parents in the chaos of the bombing. They'd met before, briefly, at Keenan's party weeks before the virus hit; apparently her and her friends were still in the city when it happened and weren't permitted to leave the state. Sam had lost Carly and Freddie in a similar way Cat had lost her mother and father. Not dead, but just...gone. She'd lurked in the shadows when Andrew turned, frothing at the mouth. She handed Cat the knife - and after that, the two found comfort in each other, and stuck together ever since.

Cat thought it nothing short of a miracle.

If Sam hadn't been there, Andrew - or the thing that was Andrew but wasn't him - would have killed her. If Sam hadn't been there, Cat would have never had the strength to take the knife and drive it through his head. And she did: over and over and over again, blood smeared over her hands so dark it almost matched the color of her hair, until Sam yanked her from him and Cat collapsed onto her back, wails ripping from her throat.

And if Sam hadn't come, Cat would have been alone. She would have never had made it this far on her own.

A tiny giggle bubbled from her throat and Cat ducked her head, avoiding Sam's perplexed stare. "What's so funny, kid?" She asked, wrench in her hand.

The dial turned beneath Cat's fingers and garbled static filled the garage. She let it go and hopped off of the wooden desk, dirty sneakers scuffing against the concrete ground. "You have oil on your face," Cat said as she approached her friend, her lower lip between her teeth. She reached to grab the cloth over Sam's shoulder and wiped gingerly at the smudge on her cheek, "here, I got it."

Sam, surprisingly, did not try to move away. "You know not everyone has the luxury to be squeaky clean anymore. You're hardly princess perfect yourself-"

A crackle in the static interrupted her. Cat's hand paused, and she turned quickly over her shoulder to stare at the radio in shock.

"Testing, testing," Came an uncertain, broken and unmistakably male voice. "Does this thing work? Is someone there?"

"Oh my god," Cat whispered, dropping the rag to the floor and near launching herself at the radio. Her hand curled around it, her fingers hovering over the talk button but not pressing down. There was something in the back of her head, a rush of paranoia, maybe, that was stopping her from saying anything. Sam joined her at her side, and her face mirrored Cat's skepticism.

"Hello?" The stranger tried again. The reception wasn't good and distorted his voice, so Cat figured they must have been far.

Sam took the radio from Cat's hands and pressed the talk button down, bringing it to her mouth. "Who is this?"

There was a pause, and then the radio crackled again. "Holy- guys! There's someone here!" The voice said excitedly. "I've been trying for hours to find somebody else out there!"

"Yeah yeah, I asked who you were."

"My name's Robbie," they said. "Robbie Shapiro."

Cat's heart leapt. The feeling that had washed over her was unexplainable; it had consumed her entire being, a sense of relief so powerful she felt lightheaded. Cat had spent months mourning the loss of her parents, her brother, and she had mourned her friends too, believing that she would never see them again. Cat did not know if they made it out of the city alive, or if they had survived this long.

Her knees felt weak as she leaned against the wooden table and grabbed the radio hastily from Sam's hands. Her eyes glistened with tears, her lips pulling into a watery smile. "Robbie!" She cried, ignoring the way Sam's eyebrows furrowed. "Robbie, it's Cat!"

"Cat?" Robbie said, and though his voice was distorted his disbelief was clear. "You made it? We - we didn't hear back from you! We thought something happened to you!" He was talking faster now, and Cat could hear him laughing with relief. "Jade! Everyone! You won't believe this!"

Sam's hand grabbed at Cat's elbow, and her fingers eased off the talk button briefly. "These are people that you know?"

"My friends from Hollywood Arts," Cat breathed, and her face hurt from smiling. She didn't think she had smiled this much since before California fell apart. "Robbie - you met him at Keenan's party - he's the cute guy with the puppet, Rex!"

"Oh, the nerd," Sam observed. Her grip on Cat's elbow loosened, and Sam smirked at her.

"Cat, you there?"

"I'm here, Robbie," Cat said, closing her eyes. "I'm here."

"Everyone is with me," he said. "The Vega's, André, Beck and Jade. How - how are you? _Where_ are you? We missed you so much, we tried looking for you, but no luck."

"I'm okay," Cat said, "it's just me, and my friend Sam. We're in Barstow, at some old garage. What about you, where are you guys? How far away?"

"We're headed to Fresno," said Robbie, "we're in Bakersfield now. We found a place - it's safe, it's secure."

"That's like, two hours from here off 58, right?" Cat asked Sam, and repeated it into the device when the blonde nodded. "If we head out now, we could get to you all with no problem, and before sunset. How can we find you?"

"Just head down the interstate. Beck and Jade will meet you," Robbie said. Cat could hear him sigh. "I'm so relieved you're okay, Cat. Stay safe, we'll see you soon."

"Bye, Robbie."

Cat put the radio down onto the table gingerly, her disbelief overwhelmed by a sudden rush of bubbling happiness. She turned to Sam, who was smirking over at her, dirty cloth between her hands and oil still smudged on a pale cheek. "I can't believe this," Cat laughed, and she couldn't stop the tears. "My friends are okay. They've been okay this whole time."

Sam's boots clicked against the ground as she walked over, placing a hand over Cat's shoulder and smiling. "It'll be dark soon," she said. "We should leave, kid. Let's go find your friends."

* * *

 **so that's it, the first chapter! the next few won't be as choppy as this one is, I promise. feedback is always appreciated (and will encourage me to update, so please tell me what you think)!**


	2. Chapter 2

**quick update because I'm done with my classes and had a lot of free time on my hands. enjoy!**

* * *

Motorcycles were sort of scary, Cat thought, and not just because Sam drove like a maniac.

Cat worried more about the fact that it was loud and attracted a lot of unwarranted attention. Cars were preferred; they were quieter and safer, but strangely hard to come by. The ones they had either wouldn't start or were out of gas or in pile-ups on the road and impossible to move. So far, they've had no stroke of luck with cars, and Sam had jumped on the chance for a motorcycle the moment they came across the mechanics.

But, she figured as the engine purred beneath her and her arms hooked tight around Sam's waist, she trusted Sam. She saved her life, after all, and who was Cat to question her judgement?

"You don't have to hold on so tight!" Sam called over her shoulder, steering them onto the highway and exiting Barstow. Right away, they passed an abandoned car accident in the middle of the road. Two infected were trapped inside of an upside down car, pawing at the broken windows and gnarling as they passed, hanging by their seatbelts.

Cat, although happy she was going to see her friends again (though a bit nervous, because Sam and Jade might try to kill each other), was almost scared for leaving. After clearing the area around the garage and putting traps up, they had been safe there. They had called it home, despite its dust and dirt and dry air, for months.

"Sorry!" She squeaked, her voice drowned out by the engine. She loosened her grip around Sam and instead hooked her fingers around her belt to hold on without suffocating her.

They pushed through the lines of cars backed up onto the highway, weaving between them easily. The largest pile-up was mostly behind them, which they had seen on their way to Barstow months ago. It was almost impossible to go through and was crawling with geeks. At the rate they were going, with Sam pushing at high speeds that both excited and nauseated Cat, they would be able to reach Beck and Jade at their meeting point in no time, provided there were no complications. Cat subconsciously looked down at the walkie talkie hooked to her belt to make sure that it was still there.

It was still strange to Cat, looking around the highway, to see California so lifeless. A few geeks straggled behind the dividers and around cars, but they were going too fast for them to be any danger. Cat had been on this interstate many times before, when she went to visit family. It was quiet now, just the two of them on an open road, surrounded by dirt and sandy hilltops.

Cat didn't think she would ever get used to the world being this way.

" _This can't be it_ ," she remembered telling her brother, her hand clutched tightly in his. " _This can't be how the world is going to be_."

" _I'm sorry Kitkat_ ," Andrew had said, and his voice echoed in her ears as ill and feverish. He'd been bitten when they were escaping the city with their parents and their car had been bombarded with geeks, but Cat hadn't realized that until much later. " _But it is_."

Andrew had never sugarcoated anything like her parents did. Whenever he was around, which wasn't much - the Valentine's never really knew where he was, unless the police had called them to tell them that he was arrested or in the hospital, or if her parents admitted him to a rehab center - he had always told Cat how it was. He'd tell her he was messed up, he'd tell her the truth whenever her parents wouldn't, even though Cat wasn't stupid and could figure it out on her own. Most of Andy's weird problems only stemmed from his drug abuse.

She missed him. She missed her parents. She wondered if they were okay, if they had tried looking for them. She wondered where they were, and if they were still alive, and thought, if they weren't, how awful it would be if Cat had outlived her entire family.

Only a few away from the city, Sam gradually eased off the accelerator and slowed the bike down to an abrupt halt. The engine hummed smoothly, and one of Sam's boots kept them steady against the ground. "We got trouble," Sam said nonchalantly, gesturing ahead of them. Cat peered over her shoulder; the road was completely blocked by cars and a massive, overturned eighteen-wheeler truck that looked like it had caught on fire some time ago. Behind it, there was a herd of geeks, who trudged along and turned lethargically to the sound of the motorcycle. Sam turned the keys to turn it off.

"There's too many of them," Cat said quietly, her eyes wide as she stared ahead of them. Her grip on Sam's jeans grew tighter unconsciously. "What do we do now?"

"We can go around, through the fields, but we need to get rid of some of the G's first," Sam suggested. "Don't wuss out, they're all trapped behind that truck - we can take them." She added, as if sensing Cat's incoming comment. Cat hopped off of the motorcycle and watched as Sam's foot eased out the kickstand and got off. Sam's hand went for her belt, pulling out a hunting knife and flipping it between her fingers with indifference. "Come on, kid! This will be fun!"

Cat's eyebrow raised expressively. "Fun?" She repeated as Sam climbed on top of the truck, geeks grabbing at her feet. The first time Cat had killed one it had been her brother, and she'd gotten sick shortly afterwards. Eventually, it got easier. But never _fun_.

"Hey, something to make our afternoon a little more exciting," Sam said, though she scowled when she brought her knife down, through a geeks skull, blood splattering onto her boots. She kicked at their hands when some of them got too close to her ankles, and Cat's heart jumped. "You gonna help or what?" She called over the garbled sounds and snarls of the infected as they piled over each other and reached for Sam in endless hunger.

Cat sighed and, approaching the truck, had to jump to heave herself up the side because she was too short. The herd wasn't very large, but the amount of them as they were now would cripple their plan to drive around them, and the noise was much louder the closer she was. In front of Sam, bodies were falling left and right, and although her friend had said it would be fun she did not look very happy to be doing it, with her gritted teeth and furrowed brow. Blood stained her arms and the sleeves of her denim jacket.

"Try to catch up," Sam said, turning to her and plastering on a grin. She wiped her forehead with her forearm. "Mama's on a roll."

* * *

"Well, this is it."

Beck put the truck in park at the shoulder of the highway and pulled the keys from the ignition, dangling them from his fingers. He turned his head to look at Jade seated in the passenger's seat, her brown hair tangled and falling over her shoulders in waves. She was staring out the window, green eyes squinted against the glare of the sun, her arms crossed over her chest. The only indication that she was anxious at all was the way her knee kept bouncing up and down.

There was miles of open road ahead of them and not a biter in sight. They had come armed, but it was a relief that they didn't seem to be needing them. Beck hoped the road was clear for Cat and her new friend.

"So, what do you think about a new girl?" Beck asked, trying to make conversation in the silence of the car.

"I think she better be trustworthy," Jade snapped, pushing the car door open and slamming it behind her. She moved to the front of the car, pushing her sunglasses over her eyes and leaning against the bumper, staring down the highway.

Following her lead, Beck leaned beside her, their arms touching lightly. "If Cat trusts her, we can too."

"Cat will trust anyone that so much smiles in her direction," Jade said, though there was a rare hint of fondness in her voice. Beck remembered what it had been like when they all believed Cat was dead. Jade hadn't so much said her name in months and shut down anybody who tried to talk about her. Beck didn't blame her.

"You don't really believe that," Beck countered, smiling softly. "Cat always had good gut instincts."

"Has," Jade corrected, crossing her arms. "You don't need to talk about her in past tense anymore."

"Right."

They fell into a comfortable silence, leaning against the bumper of his car as the sky turned orange overhead. As the day settled into afternoon, the air got cooler, and the palm trees around them swung gently in the slight breeze. Beck was glad for the quiet; there was so little of it lately provided you stayed with the group. They often didn't split up. Safety in numbers, Mr. Vega had said.

Beck knew that was true, and it was better to stay together, but Trina was driving all of them up the wall and it was good to get away from them for a little while.

"Maybe we can go on a small supply run after they get here," Beck suggested, nudging Jade slightly with his elbow. "We're running kinda short on food, and we should find gas."

"Whatever," Jade said. She didn't look at him, too focused on the highway. Her fingers gripped tighter at the quarter sleeve of the flannel shirt she was wearing. It was Beck's, one that she borrowed often. He didn't mind; he thought she looked good in his clothes. "What's taking them so long?"

He shrugged, following her gaze. "Be patient."

"Don't tell me what to do."

Beck figured Jade was being extra snippy because she was nervous, although he couldn't see why. He was excited to see Cat again - it had been too long without her, too long thinking that she was dead. It was a relief that they were here, that they had somehow managed to find her after months of _nothing_. Beck had no idea why Jade could possibly feel anxious.

Yet, he didn't push. He knew his girlfriend would withdraw into herself and snap at him if he asked, and he didn't feel like starting an argument. Instead, he kicked the toe of his boot against the concrete, loose pebbles skirting across the road, and let it go.

They stood in silence until they heard the engine of a motorbike echoing along the highway. Beck straightened, his hand falling the the gun holstered at his hip - he didn't know when the action became so automatic. Beside him, Jade pushed herself from the bumper of the car as well, squinting. "Cat didn't say anything about a motorcycle," she said, her lips pulling into a smirk.

"Maybe it's not them." Beck shielded his eyes from the sun with one hand as the engine grew louder.

"It's them," Jade said. She nodded her chin. "Look."

A black motorcycle was speeding toward them along the curve of the highway, but even from the distance Beck could see a blonde-haired girl seated in the front, and behind her, a girl with chocolate brown and red hair who was attached at her waist. They waited with quiet anticipation, breaths held as the bike slowed to a stop in front of them.

The blonde girl, Beck recognized from Keenan's party; an Internet sensation from the iCarly web-series. The sleeves of her denim jacket were cuffed at her elbows and speckled with spots of dark red blood. Sam stepped off of the motorcycle and chivalrously helped Cat hop off as well. Beck did not miss the way their hands linked together as they walked over to them.

Cat looked changed. She still looked like Cat - with her beaming smile and dark eyes a thousand shades of brown and unrelenting curiosity - but there was something that struck Beck as different. Gone was the heels and the skirts and flowing shirts, replaced by a pair of jeans and bloody sneakers and a slightly worn-looking grey tank top.

Her hair was still a deep red velvet, but her roots had begun growing back. Beck couldn't remember it being that color since before high school.

It was all subtle differences, like the hunting knife attached at her thigh, but they were there. But then again, he supposed, all of them had changed one way or another and he shouldn't have been surprised.

"Jadey!" Cat cried as they approached, and she released Sam's hand to immediately launch herself at her best friend. Jade met her halfway, and laughed slightly as she folded her arms around her smaller frame, hugging her close.

"I'm so glad you're okay, Kitten." Beck heard Jade whisper as they held each other tightly. The way her voice wavered made him think that she was holding back tears.

They stayed in each other's embrace for a while, holding onto one another tightly, before Cat pulled back, her smile watery. Her eyes flickered over Jade's shoulder and met Beck's, and she flounced over to hug him next. Beck pulled her to his chest, one hand protectively at the back of her head. To see that she was here, alive and well, overwhelmed Beck with such relief it could have brought him to his knees.

"I missed you guys so much," Cat said against him, her voice muffled by his shirt.

Beck's arms tightened around her briefly before he pulled away, a lump in his throat. "We missed you too, C," he said as she wiped the tears from her cheeks. "Everyone is really excited to see you again."

Cat smiled excitedly. "I can't wait either!" She said, bouncing on the heels of her feet and folding her hands in front of her.

"Why are you two bloody?" Jade asked, raising her sunglasses and staring over at Sam, who was perched on the motorcycle, not sure what to do with herself and staring wistfully over at Cat.

"There was a herd of geeks not too far from here," Sam said, and Cat turned over her shoulder as if she forgot she was there. "By some overturned truck. We had to get rid of a few before we could make a little detour around them."

"Oh! Guys!" Cat exclaimed. "This is my new friend, Sam. She saved my life a couple months ago."

"Internet star," Sam said, looking playfully smug. "Not like any of that matters anymore."

When it was clear Jade wasn't going to say anything, Beck stepped up and reached to shake her hand. "Any friend of Cat's is a friend of ours," he said. "Thanks for looking out for her."

Sam shrugged, the picture of nonchalance. "We looked out for each other," she said, sounding the slightest bit bashful as she released Beck's hand and reached to adjust her stained sleeves. Her lips poised into a scowl. "It gets lonely out there, you know? And she's somehow an expert at finding chips in impossible places. Won me over with some stale pringles."

"That's a sick ride," Jade commented as she returned to Beck's side, smirking.

"Yep," Sam hummed, patting the seat affectionately. "She's a beauty."

Beck flipped his keys in his hand, and they dangled between his fingers. "Jade and I were thinking that we could go get some supplies on the way back," he said. "There's a gas station on the way to the house that could have some things that we're running short on. We didn't try it out for gas yet, but with how dry most of the stations are around here…" He trailed off, shrugging. "You two okay with a pit stop?"

"It's going to be dark soon," Cat said, biting at her lower lip as she looked over at Sam, who was already starting up the bike.

Sam revved the engine, pulling her hair back into a ponytail. Loose blonde fringe hung over one of her ears. "We'll be fine," she said. "I hope there's fatcakes."

As Cat got on behind her, Beck and Jade went back to the truck. As he started it up and Jade slammed the door behind her, he glanced over to his girlfriend, reaching to grab her hand with a knowing smile. "What were you so nervous for?"

She watched as Cat hooked her fingers around Sam's belt before turning her head to meet his eyes. "I was worried she'd be different," she said. "And to be honest, I still am."

"Why?" Beck asked, kissing the tips of her fingers.

Jade was silent for a moment. When she spoke, her voice was quiet, softer than usual. It was sincere and honest and _vulnerable_. "Because," she said;

"This world is going to break her."

* * *

 **Cat and Sam are so gay for each other and they have no idea. anyway, remember to please leave your thoughts and feelings in a review! I am glad to see some people are enjoying this so far :)**


	3. Chapter 3

**well here we are, chapter three! also, don't worry "guest" - there will be plenty more Bade in the future. they are, after all, one of the main pairings. enjoy, everyone.**

* * *

 **chapter three**

If there was one thing Beck missed about the old world, it was the LA traffic.

Once, he had sat behind three hours worth of traffic on the highway on the way back from Venice beach. He had been exhausted and his trunks were slightly chaffing from when he went in the ocean, and Jade was hungry and annoyed in the passenger's seat, the rest of his friends in his RV. Everyone had apparently had the same idea as them to go to the beach and leave when it was cooler and the sun was down.

Sometimes when they were stuck in traffic, he and Jade would make up stories about the other drivers next to them, and act out little scenes of their lives. It was a way to pass the time and shake the boredom, and although most of Jade's commentary was dark, they always managed to laugh.

And right about now, Beck would be glad for some of that traffic.

Traffic meant that there was people behind him and in front of him and to the side of him, all with jobs and homes to go to, wives and husbands and maybe kids they had to make play dates for or pick up from school or daycare. Traffic meant Los Angeles was still there to return to, that it didn't fall. Traffic meant _life_.

Now there was miles and miles of open road ahead of them, the only other sign of life being the few biters lethargically wandering around crashed cars and Sam and Cat on the bike trailing behind him. The closer to Bakersfield they got, the more wrong that it felt, and the more Beck wished for lines of impatient people laying on their horns.

People did a lot of that when everyone was trying to get out of LA. Cars were lined up so badly that people were smashing into each other trying to turn around and get the hell off the highway. Beck's truck was almost hit too many times, and he remembered he was starting to get reckless himself when the military jets started flying overhead, dropping bombs over the city.

Beck's hand played with Jade's fingers, resting on her thigh, as he drove. "You should sing for me," he said, averting his eyes from the road briefly to grin at her.

"Why?" Jade asked, her eyebrows raised.

"Why not?" Beck shrugged. "I miss music, and I miss hearing you sing all the time. Remember our car karaoke?"

Jade snorted, lips pulling into an amused smile. "That was when we had working radios," she said.

"Come on, babe," he said, nudging her leg. "Sing for me."

"Don't grovel, it's unattractive," Jade said, before she huffed and cleared her throat. It had been a long time since she sang, a long time since any of them sang. André hummed sometimes, but no one really had the luxury to do it anymore.

But Jade sang for him. She tilted her head back against the seat and her tongue wove the lyrics of Alison Mosshart's _Bad Blood_ , her voice like liquid gold to Beck's ears. He had missed the sound the most, he thought, more than the traffic. Jade could sing the phonebook to him and he'd consume the sound like it was his dying breath.

Beck's lips kinked upward into a crooked smile as she sang, filling the silence of the truck, the motorcycle's engine the only background noise. He turned into the exit, and for just a second, the memories of his city burning, coloring the sky orange and red and black with smoke, of screaming citizens and his crying, frantic friends, faded away.

There was no chaos. There was no pain. There was no death and infection and terror and destruction.

Just Jade's voice.

And when he dies, Beck hoped that, _that_ voice, will be the last thing he would ever hear.

Jade sang until they reached the gas station in Bakersfield at sundown. It was lined with palm and birch trees and wide open roads. There were parked, abandoned cars and gas canisters in the lot - every time they had passed it, it always remained the same. No signs of living survivors; only the few infected trapped inside store that banged their decomposing hands against the windows who had been drawn to the sound of Sam's bike.

He reached for the radio in one of the cup holders, holding down the talk button. "Hey Rob," he called. "We stopped at Chevron for some stuff. We'll be in and out."

"Thanks for the heads up," Robbie said after a minute. "Eagle One out."

" _Eagle one?_ " Jade repeated when Beck put down the radio and opened the car door. She scoffed and did the same, pulling an old backpack from the back of the truck and reaching for the knife at her hip. Mr. Vega had taken a lot of weapons from the police station's armory before they left the city. "Really?"

Sam had parked the motorcycle behind Beck's truck and her and Cat stopped at their side. Cat had slung a bag over her shoulder. "So," Sam said. "How we doing this?"

"We open the door and let the biters out first to take 'em out," Beck said, nonchalantly smacking at a window where an infected was snarling at him. It dragged itself along the side, following Beck to the door and smearing a trail of blood on the window from its cheek. Three others followed it, and one's face was extremely mutilated. "There's only a couple. But no guns. Noise draws them in."

"No problemo," Sam smirked. She tapped the tip of her knife casually.

Beck's hand wrapped around the handle of the door and he positioned himself to the side of it, looking back at the other's. The infected piled against it, rattling it violently, and Beck was unsurprised to find it open. There had probably been no time to lock anything up. "You ready?"

Jade rolled her eyes. "Let's get this over with."

He yanked the door open quickly, and the biters stumbled out of it in a mess of shuffling limbs and inhuman growling. Sam immediately lunged forward, pushing one up against the side of the building with her forearm on it's chest and plunging the dagger through it's skull. Black-ish red blood splattered onto the wall behind them, and it went slack as she yanked the knife from it's head and let it fall to the ground. Cat had somehow managed to push another to the ground and rid of it in a similar fashion.

Flipping her knife between her fingers, Jade was stepping back, staring at the mutilated biter indifferently as it straggled after her, one arm outstretched. She stopped and tilted her head, as if examining it - and Beck knew she was just messing with it, that she could take care of herself just fine, but a nervous pit in his stomach had him rushing forward and grabbing a fistful of it's hair, yanking its head back just inches away from his girlfriend. Jade smirked and the jagged point of her knife drove into it's head.

"Really, babe?" Beck asked exasperatedly as he pushed it to the ground. "Be serious, you're going to get yourself killed."

"I can take care of myself," Jade said, wiping the blood from the knife off on the back of the biter's jacket and straightening. She reached over to pat his cheek affectionately. "I'm good."

"I know," he sighed. "I'd just rather you not end up dead."

Sam cleared her throat from somewhere behind them. "Hate to break up the moment and everything, but can we get a move on?"

The inside of the convenient store was trashed. Shelves were knocked over into other shelves, spilling very little contents onto the ground around it. All of the refrigerators had been cleared of water and ice, and near the corner a dead body sat propped against the wall, holding an empty bottle of bleach. There was a bullet hole in his head and brain matter behind it, dried froth at the corner of their mouth. Beck really expected nothing less, but couldn't help but feel disappointed at how little they had left to ransack through.

"God it reeks in here," Jade said as she followed him inside, raising her arm to cover her mouth and nose with her elbow. Cat followed her example, her eyebrows knitted together as she stepped over a newspaper stand that had been knocked to the ground.

"Alright," Beck said, glancing around him. "Take whatever that's useful that you can find. Food, water -"

"Shampoo," commented Jade. "Toothpaste."

"Important stuff first. We have enough of that to last us the rest of the week," Beck rolled his eyes at her. Sam saluted him and moved off toward the other side of the store while Cat pushed her way through the open **Employee's Only** door and disappeared behind it, humming to herself.

Beck himself immediately took to the shelves he was closest to. His eyes scanned over cans of tomato sauces and beans, flipping them over to look at expiration dates and passing the good ones along to Jade, who stuffed them into their empty backpack. Somewhere on the highest shelf, pushed to the back, was a lone jar of peanut butter, and Beck, remembering how André had said only a few days ago that he'd missed it, grabbed that too.

"Where'd you get that hat?" He heard Sam ask as Cat emerged from the backroom and moved behind the counter, examining the open register drawer curiously and sporting a grey cotton beanie.

"An employee's locker," Cat said, frowning as she adjusted it over her head. "My roots are _terrible_."

"Looks good on you," Sam said, but before anybody could comment any further, the sound of several car doors slamming outside made everyone freeze all at once.

He cautiously put down a can of tuna and drew his gun from it's holster at his belt, meeting Jade's wide eyes across the aisle. While he did tell Robbie that they were making a pit stop for supplies, it was too far out of their way to come and help - and there was really no reason for them to. Alarms going off in his head, Beck signaled for everyone to stay put and moved to the other side of the glass door, pressing his back up against the wall to peek outside without being seen.

Outside, three men were hovering around a silver SUV, conversing with each other. Two of them were wearing military pants and work boots and the tallest of them was in full, heavy uniform. He was bearded and burly, and was peering through the window of Beck's truck. Their voices were loud but muffled from behind the glass and Beck couldn't make out the words.

"Your people?" Sam asked quietly, standing frozen by a knocked over shelf. Cat stayed crouched behind the counter, peering over it with wide brown eyes.

"Soldiers," he said, grip around his gun tightening.

"Not your people then," Sam reiterated as Jade swore under her breath. "Great."

Cat's back straightened and when her hand reached for a pair of dog-tags that hung around her throat on a silver chain, Beck suddenly remembered that her father used to be in the military. "What do we do?" She asked, sounding nervous. "What if they heard the bike? Do you think they'll come inside?"

Jade glared over at her. "Cat! _Shh!_ "

"They're coming," Beck warned, and quickly turned the safety off his gun as they drew closer to the door and raised it, pointing it directly at him. The bearded soldier stopped, his expression turning breezy, and elevated his hands at shoulder level in surrender.

"No need for that, son," he called out, sounding calm. "Anyone else in there with you?"

Beck said nothing. The soldier's seemed indifferent, like strangers passing through, but even still Beck felt unsettled by their presence. The soldier nodded his head and ran his hand over his beard, turning to look at his friend over his shoulder. "I figured. We don't want to have to come in their and force you all out," he said loudly. His fingers tapped at the strap around his shoulder, where Beck noticed there was an assault rifle over his back. "It'll be a Hell of alot easier for you if you just cooperated with us. We just wanna chat a little."

Something unpleasant turned over in his stomach. Beck had not encountered anyone other than his main group after the world had turned to shit - but Mr. Vega's warnings ran through in his head. _You can't trust anyone,_ he had said. Yet still, as he held his gun high, he knew that the odds didn't look good. They had rifles and machine guns. He had one, tiny little pistol.

"Come on, kid," another soldier said. "Don't be an idiot."

"Beck," Jade whispered behind him, and the subtle hint of unease in her voice almost made him turn around. He took a breath, tension making his shoulder's rigid, and slowly lowered the gun into the holster..

The tall soldier smiled, but there was no hint of warmth in it. He moved to pull the door open, side stepping a biter's body with ease. As he moved closer, Beck could see _M._ _Fray_ written on the nametag on his chest. "Good choice," he said, and gestured for Beck to step outside. "All of you, out. Now."

With only a moment's hesitation, they did as he asked, and Jade and Cat left their bags on the floor cautiously. "That's it," one of them lured tauntingly at the girls behind him, and Beck's hand balled into a fist at his side. The three soldiers corralled them over to Beck's truck, circling around them. There was more of them than there was soldier's, but Beck felt as if he was trapped. "Now, which one of you has the keys to that pick-up?" The soldier asked; his hair looked bleached under the moonlight, eyes almost black in the darkness.

No one said anything. Fray exaggerated a heavy sigh, rolling his shoulders. "We won't ask again."

"Why do you need the truck?" Beck asked, narrowing his eyes. "You have a car right there. You don't need ours."

"Running low on gas," the darker skinned man said, crossing his arms. He nodded toward the vehicles behind the four of them. "It'll be out soon, and this place is drier than the desert."

"You kids got a place to stay?" The blond asked, gesturing toward the truck. "Doesn't look like you're living in that. You gotta be settled somewhere, right? You look too cleaned up."

"No," Jade said sharply, and her voice was taut with nervous tension. "We've been on the road."

"Where are you headed?"

"That's none of your business," she retorted, scowling.

"Alright, that's enough talk. Why don't you pass along those keys, tough guy?" Fray suggested, looking smugly over at Beck. "I'll tell you what, you can even come along with us."

"I think we're good," Sam said tightly.

Fray hummed, and his gaze turned to Cat, who had been quiet up until that point. "How about you, girly? We can keep you safe," he leered, reaching to grab at the dog-tags hanging around her neck. Cat jerked away from him just as Sam pulled her away by her arm and Beck moved to put himself between them.

"Hey, back off man," he said through his teeth, squaring his shoulders. One of his hands had moved to his gun out of reflex, and the other was in a fist so tight that his fingernails dug into the skin of his palm. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the two soldier's take a step forward. "She's not going with you."

"I think she can speak for herself, Aladdin," Blondie said, chuckling.

Beck's eyes didn't leave Fray's; his bemused smile was a thin slice of moonlight and yellowing teeth, and the corners of his aging eyes were crinkled. Beck dug into his pocket, and his keys dangled from his fingers when he held it out to him. "Just take the truck and go," he said, hating the way his pride was telling him to say otherwise. "We don't want any trouble, okay? Just go."

Fray raised his chin as if challenging Beck to make a move. "The bike, too."

"Hell no," Sam growled sharply, and Cat whimpered beside her. "No way. You can't just take everything. You have two cars, that's good enough."

"Wanna bet on that?" The other soldier said, turning over his rifle in his hands. "Doesn't really look too good for you, does it?"

"Give him the keys, Sam," Cat murmured, and anger boiled deep in Beck's stomach. Sam however, was more reluctant to give it up, her arms crossed over her chest.

"Motorcycles draw in attention," she said. "Like you assholes. You really sure you want that?"

Fray rolled his eyes and snatched the keys from Beck's hand sharply. "Leave the damn bike," he said. He turned the keys over between his fingers and reached to clap Beck on the arm with a smile. "Good doing business with you kids." He laughed, loud and bellowing, and the others followed suit as they pushed passed the four of them and piled into his truck.

As they stood by Sam's bike, watching the soldiers peel from the parking lot with a trunk full of belongings and weapons, Beck turned away and kicked at an empty gas canister, swearing loudly. He couldn't let something like that happen again. He couldn't.

He won't.

* * *

 **so, they got robbed. Beck and the other's will soon learn that zombie's aren't the only thing that they'll have to worry about in the future. and never fear! the rest of the gang will _finally_ make an appearance next chapter.**

 **please remember to review! feedback is really crucial to keep me motivated enough to continue the story, and I thank everyone who has commented so far! also, I do sometimes listen to suggestions ;)**


	4. Chapter 4

**chapter four**

"This is such _bullshit!_ "

"I know."

"What the hell was that, anyway? They think that they're all high and mighty because they're in the military? I can't believe -"

Cat winced at the harshness in her friend's tone and momentarily closed her eyes, leaning her head back against the wall of the gas station as she sat on the cold, tiled floor. Jade's voice carried throughout the inside of the convenient store, loud and indigent and unrelenting. After the men had left, they'd gone back inside. It was dark out and it wasn't smart to linger around in the parking lot. It was better to be sheltered - four walls and a roof to shield them from any more possible danger. Jade let go of all her harbored anger the minute she walked through the door.

Sam sat down beside her with a sigh, their shoulders touching. Cat took comfort in her presence more than she thought she would have. After traveling together for months, becoming accustomed to being together, Cat felt considerably safer with her here. "What about the walkie-talkies?" Sam asked, interrupting Jade's infuriated rampage. "We could call your group."

Beck, leaning against the door with his arms crossed, shook his head. "We left the radio in the car," he said. "It's not smart to use yours, either. They could hear it, follow us back."

"Maybe we should let them," Jade snapped. "There's more of us than there is them. Let's see how they like feeling cornered."

"We're not about to start a fight with trained, heavily armed soldiers, Jade." Beck said exasperatedly. "We already lost half our shit, how do you think everyone is going to like us bringing a war home too? It's not worth it. People could die."

"Yeah," Jade growled. "The three of those wazbags."

Jade's reckless determination roused a pit of fear in Cat's stomach, and though it wasn't entirely shocking, it scared her a little to think that this world had encouraged her best friend's violent behaviors and clouded her morality. And it scared her too, to think that it could happen to any one of them. It could happen to her. Sam, too. It'd probably would have happened to her brother, too, whose moral compass had always been a little questionable since even before the outbreak happened.

"We still have the bike," Sam suggested. "Maybe two of us could go back to wherever you people are holed up and bring another car to bring the rest of us back?"

"Not a bad idea," said Beck, shrugging. "I could hang back with Cat and salvage what we can while you and Jade head back?"

If it'd been anyone else her boyfriend suggested staying with, Jade might have gotten possessive. But Cat knew that Jade trusted her; she'd never gotten jealous of her close friendship with Beck like she had gotten with Tori, and any other girl, and it always made Cat feel special. Instead, Jade quirked an eyebrow and looked over at Sam. "Beats walking," she said. "Always wanted to ride a motorcycle."

"Sammy drives like a lunatic," Cat said, lips tipping into a small smile.

"Perfect." Jade smirked, shrugging her eyebrows.

Sam and Cat both stood, the former twirling the keys between her fingers. "Let's get this show on the road," she said, and when everyone nodded in agreement they all walked out to the bike sitting idle in the parking lot, gleaming beneath the moonlight. After perching herself at the front of the motorcycle, her hands on the handles, Sam met her eyes and smiled. "We'll be back soon, kid," she said, as if sensing her nerves. In all the time they'd known each other, they'd never been apart for very long.

Jade leaned over to kiss Beck on the lips before hopping on behind Sam. "Don't do anything stupid," Beck called after her, standing at Cat's side with his hands in his pockets.

"Whatever."

Cat watched as they took off down the road until they turned around the corner and disappeared from sight. She sighed worriedly, her brows knitting together. "They're going to kill each other."

* * *

When Jade returned with Beck and Cat, Tori and the other's had been waiting outside on the porch of their temporary home, roused with anticipation. Tori sat on the step's beside Robbie and Trina, her arm around her older sisters, André standing off near the driveway as her father's Civic pulled up. Her heart was hammering in her chest, and she was barely able to keep the smile off of her face. Hours before, when Robbie had yelled up to them that Cat was on the radio, Tori hadn't believed him until she heard her voice. Didn't want to believe him, even. Then Beck and Jade had gone to meet them on the highway, and it all felt a little unreal.

Tori had always had a suspicion that Cat had made it out alive, in the end. Over time, after weeks of searching, that hope had diminished. She and the other's had begun accepting that they were never going to see her again, and Tori thought she was lucky that she had been able to get out with the rest of her friends and her family. To have been separated from all of them - Tori didn't think that she could have survived that kind of pain and loneliness.

Beck and Jade emerged from the front of the car, and she stood abruptly when the back doors opened. Sam came out first; there was a smirk on her face as she closed the door behind her and turned round watch as Cat stepped out, small hands gripping the door as if they were her lifeline, staring at all of them in open-mouthed wonder. Her clothes were slightly worn out and beneath her beanie, hair in long brown ringlets was pouring over her shoulders; to Tori she almost looked like a stranger.

"Lil Red!" André's smile was a balm beneath the moonlight. He rushed forward and in one, quick swoop, easily lifted Cat from the ground and into a hug.

Robbie and Tori were quick to follow his lead once she was back on the ground, rushing forward to surround Cat with tears and cries of relief and excitement while Beck, Jade, Trina and Sam looked on. In the middle of them all, tiny and looking slightly overwhelmed, Cat squealed. "I missed you guys so much!" She cried, her voice watery. She pulled back from hugging Robbie and turned to Tori, throwing her arms around her neck and pulling her close. Her grip was nearly asphyxiating; strong and full of warmth, and Tori returned it just as tightly.

So many months thinking her best friend had been gone forever, and now she was here.

After everyone had settled down and was introduced to Sam, who they'd briefly met at Kenan's party months back, Beck ushered them all inside. "Soldier's took the truck," he said, although Jade had already informed everyone when she and Sam came back to get a car. "They could still be around, it's safer in the house."

No one objected.

"I'll be right back," Robbie said as they got inside, giving Cat one last smile before flicking on a flashlight and disappearing into the basement. Tori knew he was going to the radio - he'd practically been attached to it since the beginning of the outbreak. Finding it had been a stroke of rare luck.

"Glad to see you made it out, Cat," Her father said from the couch, smiling politely, her mother at his side.

Cat wiped a tear from her cheek and sniffed. "Thanks," she said. "It's so nice to see you all did, too."

David turned to Sam, then, and he looked appreciative if not a bit exasperated by a new face among the others. "We could escort you back to your group," he said, "give you all some supplies for reuniting us with our friend. I'm afraid we don't have much, but we can organize some for you to take."

Sam shifted, looking awkward. "Cat is my group," she said. "There's no one else."

"She stays or I go," Cat piped up, latching onto Sam's arm and looking up at David challengingly, a flicker of defiance in her eyes.

There was a brief pause, everyone rigid with tension. Tori knew her father would not send Cat away again after they had all just gotten her back, not that any of them would let him regardless, but she could see it on his face. Reluctance, because Sam was another person he would feel responsible for, another mouth to feed, another person to take care of when they could hardly get by themselves. Doubt, because her father had a hard time trusting anyone these days, even if someone else did.

And she couldn't blame him, given what had just happened, but this was _Cat._ For him to even consider it was ridiculous to Tori.

"No need for you to leave, Cat," David said, finally, rubbing the back of his head with a sigh. He looked back over a Sam, whose expression remained the same. "You can stay with us here. Safety in numbers, after all."

"I can pull my own weight," Sam said. "But...thanks."

"Good, because none of us can afford to slack around," David informed authoritatively, glancing around the group. "We all have jobs to do -"

Robbie straight-armed the living room door open just then, effectively cutting him off. He looked out of breath, leaning against the doorframe for support; his chest heaving and glasses askew. The radio hung by his side, the speaker trapped in a white knuckled grip in his hand. "Fresno is gone," he exclaimed. "It's gone."

"What do you mean gone, Rob?" Beck asked, rising from the couch.

"The refugee camp!" Robbie cried. "I finally got a hold of someone, they were calling out for survivors. I was talking to them all afternoon and then -"

"Cut to the chase, Shapiro," Jade interrupted impatiently, and for once, Tori couldn't blame her.

"It was overrun by biters," he said. "It happened right when I was talking to them. The fence went down. It just... _collapsed_. And they all got in."

No one said anything. The living room was engulfed in an overwhelming silence, the air so thick with tension and shock and disappointment that it was nearly suffocating. Tori stepped back, her shoulder bumping against André's chest, and frowned down at the slightly worn out carpet. Fresno had been their beacon of light in the darkness. While they were safe in Bakersfield, it wouldn't last them more than a few days. They couldn't survive there forever, and they were never planning on staying very long.

Fresno was all that they relied on. Hundreds of refugees had fled there. It was their only hope of regaining civilization.

And now it was all gone. Just like that.

Tori was beginning to think that there was nothing left out there to hope for anymore.

* * *

Before the world ended, Tori would sit out on the balcony when she couldn't sleep with a bowl of chocolate pudding.

She'd been lucky. Her balcony had faced the Hollywood sign and overlooked hilltops and there was palm and birch trees everywhere she looked. It was no ocean view, but it was calming and familiar and it made Tori feel at ease when insomnia kept her awake in the ungodly hours of the morning. Those nights often fueled her creativity. She had written a lot of unsung songs on that balcony that were likely charcoal now.

Now, the house the'd cooped up in was just off a formerly busy road; there was no balcony, and Bakersfield was too unfamiliar and empty to give Tori any kind of comfort at all. The suburb was dark, the city was darker, and in the quiet you could hear the groaning of the dead if you listened closely enough. There was no comfort in hearing that, but Tori figured that the fresh air might do her some good. At least, she figured, there was a deck in the backyard and a fence to keep them safe from biters.

With very little options of anywhere else to go, Tori peeled back the covers and gingerly stepped over André - who, for some reason, preferred to sleep on the floor - and quietly tip-toed down the stairs and outside to the yard.

Of all the people that could have been out there, Tori did not expect to see Cat.

Cat was laying on her back in the grass, her hands resting on her stomach as she stared up at the stars, looking deep in thought. She'd since showered since she and Sam had arrived, and her hair was dark and damp. It was still strange to see her again, after months of thinking that she was dead, and Tori almost felt guilty for disturbing her. But there was a part of her that didn't want to turn away, a part of her that longed to make up for months of lost time.

"I could really go for some pudding right now," she said as she approached, and Cat looked up at her in surprise. "Mind if I join you?"

"Sure." Cat smiled and patted the grass next to her, and Tori laid down on her back. The grass was cold and poked into the back of her t-shirt, itching her skin. "Can't sleep?"

"Nope," Tori said. "You?"

Cat shrugged, averting her gaze to the sky. The moon reflected back in her brown eyes, her skin pale. She seemed different to Tori now, more subdued and serious, and Tori wasn't sure what to think about that; not when she had no idea what Cat had experienced in the months she disappeared. "When me and Sam were in Barstow, one of us always stayed up to keep watch," she explained, her mouth quirking into a familiar dimpled grin. "Sam sleeps _a lot_."

Tori smiled and hummed in acknowledgement. "You two are really close," she observed.

"We're like this," Cat said, raising her hand up and crossing her fingers with a giggle. Tori felt herself laughing in amusement too; Cat's happiness had always been contagious, for the most part. After a moment, she continued, and her smile was still fond but her voice a little more serious than normal. "It's just been us two for a while. We were all each other had."

"You're lucky that you found each other," Tori said, her mind racing with a million questions she knew might have been better off left unanswered.

"And we're lucky we found you guys again!" Cat squeaked, reaching to poke Tori's stomach repeatedly.

When their laughs died down into silence, Tori spoke. "Cat, I-I know I shouldn't ask, but…" She hesitated, unsure. "What...happened? After the bombing? We didn't hear anything back from you, and we looked for you for weeks."

The smile gradually faded from Cat's face and Tori felt a pang of guilt for opening her mouth when she shouldn't have. Cat stared at her for a moment, and there was flicker of pain in her eyes that Tori didn't miss. She took a deep breath. "My dad wanted us to go to the desert, " she explained. "We had to go through downtown LA and then everything just kind of went...wrong." She paused, looking back to the sky, her fingers fidgeting with a pair of dog-tags around her neck.

"You don't have to tell me," Tori said. "I'm sorry I asked."

"No, it's okay, you're curious," Cat told her reassuringly. "I would be too."

Tori said nothing. Cat must have taken that as a means to continue, her voice quiet. "There was a lot of people everywhere, and a lot of buildings on fire. People were getting attacked and being..eaten in the middle of the street. My dad turned the corner to get us out and then the infected, they were just - _on_ us." Cat broke off and swallowed thickly, and Tori's breath hitched. "My brother grabbed me and we ran. I don't know what happened to our parents. I didn't hear them scream, I couldn't see them anywhere. It was chaos, there was too much happening. We just...left. And we got out."

"Jesus," Tori breathed, her stomach churning. It had been horrible getting out of the city for them, too, but Tori's dad and Beck had done a good job maneuvering around the highway and getting them to safety. She reached to grab one of Cat's hands as a means of comfort. "And what happened to your brother?" Did you lose him too?"

"No," Cat whispered. "He turned."

"Is that when," Tori broke off, "did Sam…?"

'"I did it."

"Oh god, Cat." She closed her eyes for a moment, exhaling. She couldn't imagine if it had been Trina. Tori didn't think she would be able to do it, not to anybody that she knew and loved, and it broke her heart to think that one day she might have to. "I'm so, so sorry."

Cat's eyes were glistening with unshed tears when she met her gaze, her expression vulnerable. "You haven't seen it, have you?" She asked after a moment. "You haven't seen anyone turn."

She shook her head, frowning. "No," Tori said. "I haven't."

Cat nodded, chewing at her lip. "You will," she said stoically. "And you're going to wish you never did."

* * *

 **at last, the gang is finally back together! I'm hoping to really dive into some action soon, now that everyone is all here and the plot can really kick in.**

 **also, for some reason reviews aren't showing up, but I have seen them in my emails, so thank you all tremendously who commented! it means a lot that you take the time to say your thoughts and I love hearing what you guys have to say :) it really prompts me to keep writing. xx.**


	5. Chapter 5

**hey guys, another quick update. this chapter is a little on the shorter side than the others, mostly just to set up plot. enjoy!**

* * *

 **chapter five**

"There has to be somewhere out there that's safer than this."

The gang had crowded into the living room of the house, spread apart at different sofas and chairs. It'd become a routine for them, an attempt to be as close to each other and spend as much time together as possible. With Cat back, and Sam, they'd mostly been catching up on lost time, exchanging stories and experiences. While it was good to be in their company, it seemed like all they talked about anymore was food and survival, Tori thought. She missed goofing around with them and having fun, making music and acting out silly scenes.

"Wanko's Warehouse?" André suggested, shrugging at her. "Big place, sturdy walls-"

"Overrun," Beck said, digging into his backpack distractedly. It'd been two days since they'd been robbed at the gas station, but he and Cat had managed to bring a few things back with them while they were waiting to be picked up. "Passed it last time we went scavenging - aha! There it is." He jiggled the pack in his hands before producing a jar of peanut butter, and presenting it over to André before taking a seat beside Jade on one of the couches. "There you go buddy. Forgot I had that in there."

André's smile was a refreshing sight, and Tori, from beside him, felt herself smiling too. "No way," he said, taking it from Beck, who chucked a plastic spoon at him. He pried open the lid and peeled back the plastic seal, digging his spoon in. "Thanks, man! I've been craving it for forever."

Tori sighed wistfully, leaning her elbow on his shoulder and propping her head up with her hand. "I miss tacos," she said longingly. She reached over to dip her finger into the peanut butter despite André's protests, her stomach rumbling, and licked it off. She closed her eyes briefly and sighed in satisfaction - if possible, it tasted even better than it ever had before.

"Next time I'm out, I'll let you know if I see a functioning Taco Bell anywhere," Beck joked, and Jade rolled her eyes, staring out the window. It was early afternoon, but the sky was a dismal gray color and cloudy. It meant rain soon, possibly a storm. Before they'd gotten the water running in the house weeks ago, they used to put out buckets to collect it in.

"I miss cupcakes," Cat chimed in from the arm of the chair Sam was sitting on, giggling softly. "Oh! And fudge brownies."

"You always made the best brownies," Robbie said thoughtfully. He reached to adjust his glasses, crooked on his nose. Some time ago, the left lense had cracked when he tripped while they were running.

"What about Hollywood Arts?"

Everyone turned at the abrupt voice to see Trina standing in the archway that connected the living room to the kitchen, leaning against the white frame and looking aloof. Her shoulders straightened when she realized everyone's eyes were on her, and she raised her chin with a casual shrug. "It has a fence around the cafe, and the buildings surround the courtyard. Seems _secure_ to me, or whatever."

"That's actually not a bad idea, Trina," Tori said, taken aback. Most of her sister's suggestions were not exactly constructed to benefit anybody other than herself.

"A little close to the city," Beck said skeptically, stretching one arm over Jade's shoulders. She reached up to entwine their fingers without even seeming to realize it. "That means lots of biters. Not exactly the safest location."

"Well I don't see you making any better suggestions," Trina scoffed, crossing her arms.

"Okay, hold up,"André interrupted, raising his hands at shoulder level before an argument stirred up. "Let's talk about this for a second. It's something to at least consider."

"Better than taking out chances on the road. Trust us, dude," Sam said, gesturing to her and Cat with one of her thumbs. Tori thought she looked a bit bored, her head lulling over the side of the back of the sofa. "Especially not with this many people. Risky business if you ask me."

Jade tilted her head thoughtfully, her lips pursed. "Vega Senior has a point," she said after a moment, surprising everyone. Trina looked pleased with herself. "Hollywood Arts gives us a chance. There's a _chance_ of protection against the infected - better than this dump. There's a _chance_ that we could survive there. We don't have that here, and it's not big enough for all of us anymore. It won't last us more than a couple more weeks, at most, and by then we'll have run out of supplies and places to scavenge from. The school, well," she shrugged. "It's _something_."

"I agree," Cat said quietly, staring down at her fingers. "What do we have to lose, right?"

"Our lives, for starters," Robbie interjected. He was sat at the kitchen table, fidgeting with the radio. Tori suspected that it gave him a sort of comfort, even if they heard nothing but static anymore. "There has to be more groups out there that take in survivors. We have a better chance of staying alive with them than we do on our own."

"Yeah?" Jade laughed bitterly. "I bet that's what the people at Fresno thought too. And San Diego. And San Francisco."

"We have to learn to make it on our own, then," Beck said. "That's how it works now. I don't know how good of an idea this is, but we don't have many options here, Rob. We're on edge here every day of our lives. If we stay here, we won't last."

Robbie didn't look very convinced, and although Tori agreed with the others that they should go, she could understand where he his skepticism was coming from. "It just feels like a giant step back," he said, shaking his head. "All this time, we've been staying away from Los Angeles. Now we want to go to Hollywood again? I don't know, guys."

"I'll go see what mom and dad have to say," Trina said, and turned to bound up the stairs with a dramatic sigh.

Tori watched her sister go before turning back to her friends, scattered around a foreign living room. She couldn't remember a time they were all together and it had been so quiet. The news of the camp in Fresno being overrun two days ago had hit them all hard - it almost felt as if their only hope had been ripped out of their hands, after weeks and weeks of planning and anticipating. Tori and André themselves had stayed up in the late hours of the night, talking about nothing and everything. What it would be like, how the people would be. If life there would have some sort of resemblance to normalcy again.

Static echoed between the walls, a white noise in the silence between them all. Robbie turned one of the knobs, mumbling to himself, smacking the radio when nothing had changed. Upstairs, Tori could hear her parents and Trina's footsteps walking down the hall and to the stairs.

David looked worn, purple bags beneath his eyes. As a cop, Tori had long ago grown used to him looking stressed; but this was something else entirely. Being plunged with no warning into this new reality, into leadership, had done him no favors. It could not have been easy for him, but Tori hoped that he could at least continue to keep it together and keep his head on straight. He sighed, running a hand over his jaw, over the growing stubble over his cheeks. "Trina informed us of the plan," he said. "It seems only fair to take a vote on it, see where everyone stands. All in favor?"

Everyone but Robbie raised their hands. Tori hesitated, glancing over at her friend with a frown, before she raised hers too.

"Robbie?"

He glanced over, shoulders deflated in defeat. "I'm not objecting," he began. "I just wanted to have every option presented before we made a decision. But if it's unanimous, then…" He trailed off, glancing down at the radio in his hands.

"Alright then, it's settled." David said. "We go to Hollywood Arts."

* * *

 **alriight, let's hope that their plan will follow through and the school could be a long-time home for them ;)**

 **remember to leave a review with your thoughts! huge thank you to those who are! xx.**


	6. Chapter 6

**I almost wasn't able to finish this because Ariana Grande's new album killed me. but I got it done! enjoy xx**

* * *

 **chapter six**

When it happened, people nationwide called it Judgement Day.

His grandmother called it the Rapture.

André himself just preferred to call it the _new world._ He didn't think that the dead rising, walking on the earth along with them, had anything to do with any kind of religious symbolism. Just maybe a tough break for humankind and one huge mess up from CDC lab-coats that they couldn't clean up fast enough.

It started on the east coast. Lewiston, Maine. Someone got violently ill and died in the hospital twelve hours later, and reportedly attacked one of the nurses - bit right into her neck. At the time it had seemed like something the news reporters televised just to rouse up the public and cause an international panic. Then there were reports of it hitting New York and Florida, even cases of it arriving in Quebec, Canada. Then central America. Then Mexico.

André never paid attention to it. It was nothing serious, they'd get it under control eventually. He had English essays to worry about and songs to write and music producers to impress. Life went on.

If he had known back then that it would escalate so quickly, that he'd be here now, staring at the parking lot of his old high school littered with bodies, dead and undead, André would have never dismissed everyone's worry for paranoia. He would have never shaken his head when his grandma prayed for forgiveness every night, prayed for safety and immunity (later, she prayed for André, that he would be watched over and kept safe when the virus took her, too). He would have never laughed at the strange videos on the internet, thinking that people would do anything for their ten minutes of fame and attention.

Through the fence of the Asphalt Cafe, André saw the table just beneath the stage that he and his friends used to sit at on a daily basis. It was almost weird to see it now; it's dark blue color rusted and stained with soot from the smoke after the bombings deeper in the city. On the day it fell apart, André remembered sitting at that table. Beck and Jade had sat on the other side, staring down at their food, and Tori was sitting to his right. Robbie had left school early and Cat had never even shown up. The cafe, at that point, had been nearly empty. No music, and just three other full tables somewhere behind them.

The first student in Hollywood Arts to get it had been Sinjin, and then it was Berf. He passed out in the middle of class, foaming at the mouth and choking on his own vomit, and everyone else was sent home. It was only ten in the morning, and André remembered thinking that it was weird.

Knowing what had happened to them now, he didn't think it was weird anymore. Just sad.

"It's eerie being back here," Robbie said from somewhere beside him, squinting through his glasses at the cafe. It reeked of the dead, and a few straggled behind the fence. One was missing her legs and was stuck beneath the overturned lunch truck. André knew her. She was in his first period math class.

She wanted to be a comedian.

"Doesn't even look like Hollywood Arts anymore," said Beck as he slung a pack over his shoulder and shut the door to the RV behind him. "Everything is so dull looking now."

He was right. The school had lost its vibrancy and color, although it'd only been a couple months. The firebombing had done a great deal of damage to surrounding neighborhoods and areas that hadn't been directly hit. It'd turned the sky orange with fire and black with smoke that traveled for days after it had happened. Hollywood Arts wasn't hit, but it was close enough to have felt the aftershocks of it. André wondered where all the biters had come from.

André turned around, facing away from his old high school promptly. He suddenly didn't want to look at it anymore. Instead, he focused on his group. Tori was standing beside Trina, next to their parents. Robbie was at his side and Beck and Jade were standing by the RV - they'd attached it to the back of Mr. Vega's car, and it was where they both slept - and Cat and Sam were behind them all at the motorcycle, looking like strays. Solemn faces all around. He was beginning to get a bit sick of it; he missed smiling all the time, he missed feeling happy.

"We'll need to clear it and make sure it's safe," David Vega announced, scanning them all. Where they stood, they were relatively safe from biters. "Make sure that it's not already occupied. If it isn't, we make it ours. The fences are sturdy, they can hold."

"And if it is occupied?" Jade asked sourly, raising a pierced brow.

David regarded her with a sigh. "Then we'll deal with that when the time comes." He glanced over the school, one hand on his firearm at his belt, looking the very epitome of a policeman. "It's a large area, so we'll have to split up into groups to cover it all. Holly, girls, I want you with me. Everyone has a radio - use it if you need to. Channel seven."

Beck met his eyes and André nodded confidently. It made him feel better that Tori was going to be with her family, and it looked as if Sam and Cat were planning on sticking together. He nudged Robbie's side with his elbow when he noticed him looking a bit lost. "You can come with us, Rob," he said, ignoring the way Jade threw her head back into Beck's shoulder with an obnoxious groan.

Robbie nodded and looked down at his shoes, kicking at loose rock. "Thanks."

"Okay everyone," David said, "it's still morning, but let's try to get this done before night fall. The sooner we can get shelter, the better." He paused, his eyes hardening. "And remember: Aim for their heads."

* * *

"So, you gonna give me a tour of this place?"

"Sam," Cat chastised lightly, throwing her a dimpled smile over her shoulder as they ascended the stairs. "Maybe later."

Everyone had split up into three groups and had gone their separate ways. Cat had grabbed Sam's hand and announced that they would take the west side of the school campus, where the gymnasium and auditorium was. Both large areas with plenty of exits if they needed to make a run for it. Sam hoped not; she never much liked running, especially not in unfamiliar places.

Up ahead, Cat lead her through an empty parking lot in front of the track and football field, her fingers tightening around hers - if it had been anyone else, she might have pulled away. Sam was pleasantly surprised to see the lack of geeks, provided she ignored the two dead bodies. "We can get through those doors," Cat announced, pointing over to the building. "That'll take us through the girls locker room."

"At least it's not the boys," Sam mumbled, following her.

"Once, Beck and André stole Robbie's clothes from the showers and we got it on video," Cat giggled into her palm.

"Why?"

"He was making these horrible videos about us and posting them on TheSlap!" Cat said. "So Jade wanted to get revenge on him for being mean so he'd stop."

"Effective, but not a mental image I want," Sam said, pursing her lips. They stopped short in front of the locker room exit, and Sam moved Cat aside as she reached for the handle, and pressed her ear to it, listening closely for any signs of danger. "Just making sure," she explained when Cat furrowed her brow. She pulled away when she was sure she couldn't hear anything.

"Come on," Cat said, and pulled at the handle. The door didn't budge. She frowned, trying again. "I think it's jammed."

"Nothing is jammed if you try hard enough," Sam said, fixing the cuffed sleeves of her jacket before grabbing the door handle. "Put some arm muscle into it, you twig," she teased. "Okay, pull on three. One, two -"

With a moment of struggle, the two of them yanking at the door, it opened at last and sent them stumbling back. Sam regained her footing, her arm helping Cat steady, and they peered inside the dark locker room, the sun shining in from the door and the windows the only source of light.

Cat hesitantly entered first, acting as the guide. This was familiar territory for her. Rows of deep blue colored lockers were lined up, surrounding wooden benches. The showers were further in the back, the area dark, and Sam could hear water dripping against the tile. One of the lights was dangling from the ceiling, swinging in tiny circles, and some of the mirrors were cracked.

"Place looks like a dump," Sam said, closing the door heavily behind them as Cat moved for one of the light switches and flicking it on.

To both of their surprise, the lights came on, though they were dim. The one hanging flickered spastically.

"Oh! Electricity still works," Cat announced, as if she needed to.

"Thanks, Captain Obvious," Sam huffed. Her eyes scanned over the area, which would have been rather nice for a locker room had the circumstances been different - when they found a wooden baseball bat perched against the wall. Her lips twisted into a smile. "Oh yeah, come to mama," she hummed, walking over to grab it.

"We probably won't be able to get back out this way," Cat called out to her while she examined the bat in her hands, voice carrying in the empty space. "The doorknob won't even budge anymore."

"It's cool," Sam said, and waited for Cat before pushing through the exit leading out to the gym. "Let's go."

The gymnasium was huge, with a high domed ceiling and four sets of multicolored bleachers on either side of the room. In the middle of the polished wooden floor, someone had painted "H.A" in large, red letters.

And as soon as the locker rooms door opened, a large group of walkers turned their heads at the noise, their growls carrying throughout the room. Cat gasped in surprise and stepped back, blindly reaching for Sam behind her.

"Damn it!" Sam cursed.

"Oh god," Cat cried, chest heaving with rising panic. "We can't get out this way - where do we go?"

Sam brandished her baseball bat in front of her, adrenaline coursing through her veins like hot fire, but she knew that it was useless. There was too many of them, straggling forward quickly, pushing toward the two of them.

They were going to be completely surrounded.

She glanced around her, eyes scanning for possible exits around them that they could reach, and then:

"The bleachers!" Sam exclaimed, grabbing Cat's wrist and pulling her along. She shouldered passed a geek roughly, and he fell weightlessly off of his feet and onto his back.

Approaching the folded bleachers, Sam tossed the baseball bat to the top and jumped up to climb over while Cat turned to fend of geeks that had gotten too close to them. Sam scrambled to the top with little struggle, and turned to extend her hand out. "Come on!" She cried, heart pounding, her voice loud but lost in the echoes of the dead. "Grab my hand, I'll pull you over!"

Cat used both of her arms to shove a geek away from her and into the crowd and quickly turned, reaching up for her. Sam's fingers curled tightly around her forearm, and although Cat must have only weighed about 90 pounds, used the edge of the bleachers to help pull her up. Cat used her feet to help herself up, and the geeks, completely surrounding them now, grabbed for her dangling ankles.

The infected were on them all at once, pushing against the bleachers as Cat gripped the edge and desperately kicked out at them. One of her feet slammed against a geeks face, once, twice; but they were relentless, trying to grab her pull her down, their mouths gaping with rotting teeth and driven by mindless hunger. Cat was just narrowly avoiding getting bitten.

But Sam Puckett would be damned if either of them died today.

"I got you!" Sam said through gritted teeth, pulling her friend up with all of her might. Cat was finally able to swing one of her legs over the side and haul herself up. Cat fell into Sam immediately, pushing her back against the wall, and they gripped at each other at the top of the bleachers, breathing heavily.

After a moment, Sam rose to her feet and brushed herself off, glancing over the edge of the bleachers with a scowl while Cat scrambled for the radio. The sound of the infected echoed into Sam's ears, congesting and loud. They reached for them with fleshy hands, teeth crunching and grinding; the faces of the dead overwhelmingly everywhere she looked.

"Well," she sighed. "Shit."

* * *

 **so, Cat and Sam almost became zombie breakfast and got cornered, but at least they still have their radio! more to come soon, so please leave a review with your thoughts/predictions! :)**


	7. Chapter 7

**chapter seven**

"We need help!"

Cat's voice was lost in the swell of loud, chaotic background noise, but Tori could still hear the panic woven into her words over the radio as clear as day.

"The gym is - Sam! Be careful!"

Tori glanced over at her father, who was already checking the magazine to his pistol. "Cat? What's happening?" She quickly asked, unable to keep her worry at bay.

Her answer came only moments later. "There was a swarm of geeks in the gym! We're trapped on the bleachers, there's too many of them!"

David took the walkie-talkie from his daughter's hands, a muscle twitching in the side of his jaw. "Stay where you are, we're coming to get you," he ordered, sounding authoritative and eerily calm despite how rigid his shoulders were. "No one play hero. Just stay on top of the bleachers as long as you can."

"We're by the girls locker room on the far right," Cat cried; they could hear Sam swearing and the thunderous growls of the undead in the background, overwhelmingly loud. "Come through the left entrance!"

Her father nodded as if her friend could see them, before handing Tori back the radio. Holly and Trina were looking on not far off, their brows furrowed; and while her mother looked concerned, Trina looked entirely doubtful. "The four of us together could cause enough of a distraction for Sam and Cat to get to safety," David said, his voice rushed. "We may be able to take them all out, but if not, make a run for it while you still can and get as far away as possible. We have guns - use them if you need to."

"The gym is this way," Tori guided, hurrying down the hallways with her family in tow.

"Are we seriously doing this?" Trina questioned, and her disbelief was clear. "I could get hurt!"

"We _all_ can get hurt, Trina. And Cat and Sam could die if we don't get to them!" Tori snapped, but she didn't turn around. Instead, she continued down a familiar route in pursuit of the gymnasium, her sneakers falling heavily against the tiled floor of the school's abandoned hallways. "Don't be so selfish! We have to help our friends, we can't just leave them there!"

"I'm _just_ saying!"

"Girls!" Holly's voice was biting, cold as ice. "That's enough. There's no time or point in arguing about this!"

Her mother's austerity was enough to silence the pair of them, although Trina could still be heard grumbling as she trailed after them. Tori could not believe her older sister could be so inconsiderate in such a touch-and-go situation; she had at least thought her narcissistic tendencies would have been left behind when it came to life and death in favor for the safety of people she cared about. Clearly, it seemed Trina still put her own well-being high before anybody else's and was desperately in need of a reality check.

Arriving outside the gym doors, Tori could hear the biters inside as they pummeled against the bleachers, and she was sure she could even hear her own heartbeat as it leapt frantically in her chest. Although her yearning to help her friends was strong, adrenaline pumping in her veins, Tori could not push down the sudden rush of fear. It was not assuaged by the tense look on her father's face as he positioned himself at the doors.

"We can draw them away," David said, meeting his wife's eyes for a split moment before he looked over at both of his daughters. "Take out as many as you can with your knives first. Work together and be smart."

They answered him with silent nods, gripping tight to their weapons. Tori's father had taught them all how to shoot, and while she was nowhere near a perfect aim, she was able to get the job done.

David shouldered the door open and they all pushed inside; sure enough, in the far right by the woman's locker room across the gymnasium, Cat and Sam were standing on the highest stoop of the bleachers, their feet kicking out at the biters reaching hands. At the sound of the doors opening, a few of them sluggishly turned and began meandering toward them, jaws wide with rotting teeth and throaty gnarls.

It was the most Tori had seen in one area before, up close and personal, but she was relieved to know that they weren't up against hundreds like it had sounded like.

Holly and Trina ran to the bleachers to the right of the door, slamming their hands against the sides, causing enough commotion to attract biters for Sam and Cat to get down. They used their knives to take care of the remaining few standing at the bleachers, swift and quick, before hopping down and running to help the Vegas. Tori and her father quickly drove their knives into as many as they could as some of the infected moved to surround them, working as a team.

Somewhere behind the herd, Sam grunted and hit the ground, a biter falling down on top of her. Her baseball bat clattered to the floor, and she struggled to push the infected away from her, it's teeth chomping blindly for her skin. Before Tori could move to try and help her, to try and get passed the biters in her way, she saw Cat wrench it's head away from Sam and thrust her knife into the base of it's skull, dark blood splattering over her face and arms as she yanked it away.

Gradually, they were able to make a dent in the herd, and it was quickly beginning to recede.

"Keep pushing!" She heard David yell out to them, his words echoing throughout the gymnasium. He drew his gun from his holster, aiming the barrel and pulling the trigger. A bullet cut through the air and into the head of an infected that had been getting dangerously close to Holly's back without her knowing. Tori heard more, but didn't risk looking away, fighting off as many infected as she could at Trina's side. Her sister was backing up, brandishing a gun in front of her. "We can finish them off!"

Tori believed him. Her fear, though persistent still, was beginning to ebb away in favor of determination. They could do this.

They _were_ doing this.

* * *

The colored plastic chairs in Sikowitz's classroom were overturned and piled on top of one another in a panicked, but effective, attempt at blocking the doorway.

Jade peered through the cracks, scanning the room for any sign of life; any sign of current or previous living. Apart from an open window, it looked relatively untouched. The air was stale and decrepit, and she could see dust particles leaching at any remaining moisture in the room through the light from the closed windows. She assumed the person who had barricaded the door had fled for their life - if the biters in the hallway she and her friends had just disposed of were any indication of danger at all - through the window and never turned back.

Hollywood Arts, at this point, was looking to be fairly unoccupied. Finding survivors with the school in such an unstable condition seemed improbable, and if they were to go through with making it theirs, there was a lot of work to be done to make it even remotely habitable. Removing the danger was one thing, getting rid of the all the bodies and the stench of the dead was another thing entirely.

"Well, someone _was_ here," Jade announced, stepping back from the doorway and turning to the others. It was unsettling to see her school in a state, but seeing Sikowitz's classroom had struck a chord in her she didn't know she had.

"Is there a body in there or something?" Beck asked. Him and André were investigating the vending machine a little ways down the hall, Robbie standing just a view feet behind them and looking on.

"Door's blocked," Jade said. "Pretty sure no one is coming back for this place."

André tapped absently at the cracked glass of the vending machine, a rusted crowbar dangling from his other hand. "Everyone wants to stay away from the city," he said, shaking his head. "We must be out of our damn minds for this."

"Having second thoughts, Harris?"

"No." He gave her an impassive look. "There's some Peppy Cola in this machine and it's taunting me, woman. Taunting me."

"Just break the glass," Jade rolled her eyes impatiently and twirled the axe in her hands idly; a small penchant to keep herself occupied. She'd found it months ago, after having shattered the door to an _In Case of Emergency_ box with her elbow. There were still small, pale scars on her arm where the glass had cut into her skin.

Tori didn't like the idea of her carrying around an axe too much.

"Um, guys?" Robbie spoke up, hesitant. He was clinging to the radio, holding onto it like it was his lifeline. Jade wondered if his impulsion to keep it on him at all times had anything to do with Rex. "Do we really have time for this? Worrying about...sodas, I mean. We should be clearing this place of biters and making sure that it's safe."

"Rob's right," Beck said, patting the skinny teen on the shoulder and smirking over at André. "We can celebrate with some expired, warm soda later, man."

The four of them, after some convincing to get André away from the vending machine and his precious and dearly missed Peppy Cola, traveled further down the hall. The floor and the painted murals on the walls were powdery with soot and dust, and papers were scattered around empty, unstirred classrooms they passed. As familiar as these hallways were, Jade could not help but feel as if it wasn't Hollywood Arts at all. And her school wasn't the only thing that had felt different; Los Angeles had been her home all of her life, but it had been changed, warped into something new and unrecognizable.

Jade West did not like _change._

It had been bad enough when Tori Vega had dazzled her way into the heart of their friend group and tried to 'steal' away the two most important people in her life. Everyone had said Jade's hostility toward her was extreme and overreacting, but Beck was _hers_ , and Cat, more than anyone else besides her boyfriend, was _hers._ And Tori would link arms with the redhead and laugh and Beck started taking Tori's side more than her own and Jade had not taken that change very well at all.

But if there was one thing that she had learned in this new life, it was that you couldn't afford to dwell on things of the past. You had to squash the memory and the feelings with the heel of your boot and keep on moving through the motions. Lingering on how things were before everything turned to hell in a handbasket was what got people killed.

Eventually, they found themselves at the BlackBox theater. It had been where Berf collapsed. Jade had been in the class when it happened, and everyone in the room had to be evaluated and poked and prodded by doctors for hours afterwards until they were given the all clear to go home.

"Doors aren't locked," Beck said, pushing through them with little struggle. He waved a hand out in front of him, clearing the dusty air. "That's always a good sign."

They followed him inside, investigating around the abandoned theater. The seats were still lined up as they had been the last time they had class there, and everything seemed relatively normal, except for the rotten smell. Robbie moved by the curtains toward the back of the room, his brows knitted together. "Do you hear that?"

"Hear what?"

André's voice was drowned out by a loud crack in the distance. Unmistakably a gunshot.

Everybody paused where they were, uncertainty on their faces. Robbie fiddled with the radio (swearing under his breath because he had not been connected to the right channel like he thought he was) and pressed down the talk button as everyone stared at the closed doors to the Blackbox theater.

"Guys? Everything okay?"

No answer.

Jade hesitated before speaking up. "Should we go-"

Another gunshot echoed, followed by another...and then the radio clattered to the floor, and Robbie was screaming.

André lunged forward without hesitation and yanked the biter ( _Lane,_ she realized with horror as she turned, heart jumping frantically in her chest and blood rushing in her ears) away from Robbie's arm, driving the crowbar into the side of his head repeatedly with a wet squelch. Robbie fell heavily onto his back and clutched at his forearm desperately, black-ish blood spouting over his shaking fingers. His cries ripped from his throat, raw with pain and dismay.

"Shit!" Beck shouted, and his voice ricocheted off the walls of the classroom. "He's bitten!"

"What the hell do we do?"

Jade clutched the handle of the axe in her hand so tightly that her fingers paled, and she didn't register that she was moving at all until she was at Robbie's side. Her friend and boyfriend were panicking, shouting, and Robbie's wails were like knives drilling into her ears. She sank to her knees beside him, eyes glued to the bite on his arm, and it was then that she saw her own hands were trembling. "Hold him down," she ordered, a slight tremor to her words. " _Now!_ "

Beck and André moved into action and were at his side in an instant, holding Robbie to the floor. He was incoherent, his eyes squeezed shut, completely unaware of anything else around him. She hoped that he passed out - in fact, she wished for it. It would make what she was about to do easier for all of them involved. "Jade, what are you doing?" Beck asked worriedly, his eyes round with panic and apprehension. "Babe?"

She took a deep, steadying breath.

"I'm saving his life."

And then she brought the axe down.

* * *

 **so, the clearing of the school isn't going very smoothly (understatement)...but you know what they say about overcoming obstacles.**

 **like always, tremendous thank you to my readers! feel free to review with your thoughts :) more to come soon.**


	8. Chapter 8

**chapter eight**

"Keep pressure on his arm!"

"I _am,_ Beck!"

"Fuck, he's losing a lot of blood -"

"Oh god, Robbie! What happened!?"

"Is he alive?"

" _Careful!_ "

"We need to cauterize that wound!"

"Stay with us, Rob! You're going to be okay!"

.

.

Someone was crying. They sounded far away, their voice muffled as if behind glass.

"It's okay, Robbie." They sniffed delicately. "Everything will be fine when you wake up."

There was a beat of silence.

"Please," they whispered. "Just...please, you need to

 _wake_

 _up._ "

.

.

The moment Robbie opened his eyes, all he could feel was pain.

It started at his left elbow, like pins and needles, and further down his wrist and hand felt like white hot fire. A groan passed his lips, involuntary and guttural, and he slowly opened his eyes. It was dark, if not for the moonlight spilling through the cracks in the window and a small flashlight standing upright on the desk in the corner of the room. It took him a moment to register that he was in the old nurse's office, laying down on the medical exam chair.

He blinked a few times, his vision blurry at the corners and disorientating, and when he turned his head to the right he saw a figure shift in one of the chairs. Small and brown-haired.

"Cat?" He called out, and his voice was scratchy in his throat; dry and painful.

"I'm here, Robbie," Cat said softly, approaching his side and smoothing damp hair away from his forehead. He could just make out her frown of concern, a hint of exhaustion in her tone. Dried blood stained the base of her throat and sprinkled over her cheeks. "Everyone will be so relieved you're awake. How are you feeling?"

"What happened?" He asked, and he moved his right arm up to touch his other elbow, only to find his wrist was handcuffed to the railing of the chair. "Cat, why am I handcuffed?"

"You really don't remember?"

Cat's words caught him off guard. He leaned his head back against the leather cushion, pain radiating up and down his arm, and closed his eyes. Robbie didn't remember much, but he knew he had felt unimaginable pain moments before passing out on the floor of the BlackBox theater. He squeezed his eyes shut tighter, trying hard to think back to what had happened.

Then, it all hit him in a flash: Lane's teeth ripping into his arm, peeling back skin and pulped muscle. Blood, everywhere. Beck and André holding him down. Jade at his side. The axe -

 _Darkness._

Robbie's eyes snapped open suddenly, and he turned to find the bite, surely the source of his pain. A wave of nausea and panic churned in his stomach when he saw, from the elbow down, his forearm was completely gone. Instead, his elbow was tightly wrapped in thick, white gauze. "My arm," he croaked, fighting against his restraints desperately.

He barely registered the jingle of keys beside him when Cat moved to undo the cuff around his wrist, his thoughts racing with hysteria. When he was free, he clutched at the leather chair, delusional with hope that when he did, his arm would still be there.

"We weren't sure if you-" Cat broke off, sounding uncertain. "Mr. Vega handcuffed you just in case. I'm so sorry, we couldn't take any chances."

"Any chances?" Robbie repeated, choking on his words, a lump in his throat.

Cat hesitated. "You were bitten. Jade...she did what she thought would help you. You were unconscious all day and night, Robbie, you lost a lot of blood, and Mr. Vega had to cauterize the wound to get it to stop. We didn't know if you were ever going to wake up. Or if you did…"

She trailed off, but Robbie understood what she was hinting at. "You didn't know if I would turn," he finished quietly, staring down at the empty space where his forearm should be. The arm that held Rex, all those years before. Gone, just like his friend was. What a cruel and ironic twist of fate. "Jade cut my arm off," he murmured.

"She saved your life."

"And I guess I should thank her for this, huh?" Robbie said, tone sharp. "How can I survive with one arm? She didn't do me any favors - she did me a disservice!"

"Robbie."

He kept on, relentless, pain fueling his anger. "She should have just let me die! Why did she even care? Who am I to her? I'm nobody, that's what she said. She told me I wouldn't last in this world, you know, and she was right. So why would she do it? Why put me through _this_?"

"Robbie, stop it!" Cat snapped, and it was so sudden and unfamiliar that he _did_ stop. "You might think that Jade doesn't care, but she does! Everyone else panicked when you were bit, and she was the only one to try and do something about it. She saved you, Robbie, whether you realize that or not."

"I can't survive in a world with an arm and a half, Cat! Be realistic for once!"

"I _am_!" Cat's blood stained cheeks flushed red, her hands balled into tiny fists. It was strange to Robbie, having never seen her this truly angry before and certainly never directed at him. "My father - one of his best friends in the army was honorably discharged because he lost his leg when he was deployed. I remember my dad telling me that it took him a while to come to terms with it, but he did. And, well, he almost shot my brother once on accident, but he was one of the bravest people that I ever knew." Cat looked down at him, her dark eyes hopeful. "You can survive this."

What she said struck him, but Robbie swallowed and closed his eyes again; a futile attempt to get away from the optimism in her state. "He didn't have to deal with skin-hungry corpses," he said sourly. "All we do now is run and fight. I'll be a liability."

"But you don't have to go through it alone," Cat said. "We can all help you. You're stronger than you think you are."

Robbie opened his eyes but looked away from her, away from his missing arm, and stared at hte doorway of the nurse's office with disdain. He felt exhausted and weak, his body aching with pain. "I hope you're right, Cat," he said quietly. "I really, really hope that you're right."

* * *

Jade stared down at the floor of the BlackBox theater. Slick pools of red were sleeping into the carpeted floor of the stage, dark and ominous looking. Robbie's arm was lying in the center of it, the source of it all, dried blood caked onto bits of unharmed skin. Some of that blood was smeared over her own hands and arms, even; she'd had to put pressure on his elbow when they were carrying him to the nurse's office to try and keep him from bleeding out before Mr. Vega got to him. She swallowed, digging her dirty fingernails into the palms of her hands, pushing down the relentless waves of nausea.

Normally, Jade would not have felt so strongly about seeing a severed arm. Blood and gore and pain had never bothered her; in fact, she'd always had some sick fascination to it - and maybe that meant she fell somewhere on the masochistic spectrum, but Jade never cared much for labels and specifics or much for going to see a therapist.

But this was _Robbie's_ arm, and _she_ had done it, so it was different. It was different.

She jerked her gaze from it suddenly, overcome with a momentary need to look away lest she be sick. Her eyes fell, instead, on the body lying twisted and still a few feet away. André had done a number on Lane's head with the crowbar; his face was hardly recognizable anymore, and his dark skin looked ashen and decaying beneath the blood, purple circles around his clouded eyes. Jade could not help but wonder how long he had been dead for, and what had happened to him.

When people in Los Angeles started getting sick and more and more students stopped coming back to school, there was talk of closing it down completely - especially after what had happened with Berf. Lane and some of the very few teachers that had not disappeared stood in solidarity and said that they would never give up on Hollywood Arts and it's students, while their new principal Helen grabbed her family and fled the state of California.

And he didn't. Even when it had all fallen apart, Lane had stayed at their school until the very end.

"You should go get cleaned up."

Jade twitched in surprise and turned over her shoulder. André was standing in the doorway of the theater, blatantly ignoring the mess on the floor as if he couldn't bear to look at it, his hands stuffed into his pockets. He'd changed into a plain white t-shirt, skin clear of blood and dirt, and his dreads were pulled back into a ponytail. So clean, he looked out of place, as if this world hadn't touched him at all.

"There's running water here?" She asked dryly, her gaze finding Lane's body again subconsciously. Something twisted inside of her, dark and unwarranted. It made her feel vulnerable, exposed, and she wanted it gone.

"In the bathroom by Sikowitz's class and in the girls locker room. It's cold, but beggars can't be choosers," André answered casually, shrugging. "The water in the other ones come out brown and nasty lookin'."

"Cool," she mumbled distractedly, breath leaving her heavily. Behind her, she could hear the shuffle of André's jeans and sneakers as he moved to stand at her side. His dark eyes finally fell on Lane's body, and his brows dipped forward, bridge of his nose crinkling. André was more or less an open book to Jade - most people were, with the infuriating exception, Vega - but now, she wasn't sure what to think looking at him. How he was feeling about what he had to do.

As far as she knew, none of them besides Cat and Beck had ever had to kill somebody that they cared for. Jade had run from her father in a moment of weakness when he got sick and turned, back when the military was still around, right out of the house and to her boyfriend's. A soldier had noticed and stopped her in the street, chest heaving, and when she told him he directed men to go take care of it. Jade only ever stepped foot in her house once after that, to grab some belongings. The rest of the time she'd stayed at Beck's, and then Vega's.

Her little brother, Adam, was at her mother's house in New Jersey when everything fell apart, and she heard nothing from either of them. Jade felt selfish for being grateful that they weren't here with her in Los Angeles when everybody else around her longed to see their missing family members.

Jade thought it was better to think that they were dead. And if they weren't, by some miracle, it was better for them to think that she was dead, too.

"Lane was a good man. _Weird,_ but he was good," André said solemnly. "I can't believe he stayed here after everything that happened. Everybody left, but not him."

"Yeah, well, look where it got him," Jade said, unable to keep the bitterness from her tone. It was derived from that vulnerable feeling that she hated; a desperate attempt at pushing it down and keeping herself collected. She couldn't afford to dwell on what had happened to Lane, what he'd become, as much as she sort of liked him. And she wasn't much in the mood for a eulogy.

André regarded her with a brief look, as if he could see right through her. "I'm just sorry that it turned out this way for him," he said.

"Maybe it was for the better."

"Maybe," André said hesitatingly. His gaze flickered back to Lane's body, almost apprehensively, before he turned to walk away. "You smell like death, girl," he called over his shoulder. "Go take a shower."

"Bite me," Jade threw back at him, a lightness to her voice this time.

Down the hall, André just laughed.

* * *

 **I hope that everyone who thought Robbie was dead was pleasantly surprised! haha, I was never planning on killing Robbie (and I didn't want major character death to happen so early anyway), just his poor arm. this had been planned out since the beginning.**

 **anyway, the pain he is experiencing with his arm is called phantom pain. it occurs with most amputees, and I'm super excited to explore it.**

 **as always, feel free to leave thoughts/predictions :)**


	9. Chapter 9

**chapter nine**

"Cat told me you were awake."

"Yeah."

"So? How do you feel, Shapiro?"

Robbie exhaled, slowly, before averting his gaze from the dead plant in the corner of the nurse's office and to the doorway. Jade stood, hovering just inside the room, her eyebrows knitted together and one of her hands resting on the top of the axe at her belt. Cat had left an hour ago to help the others clean up the school; he wondered if Jade had been avoiding him on purpose or just didn't really care.

"I don't know," he answered, reaching to adjust his glasses perched on his nose out of nervous habit. "Not dead."

"...Good."

He narrowed his eyes and Jade shifted on her feet, looking uncomfortable. Something stirred in his chest; a feeling of resentment and anger. Robbie was grateful that she had saved his life, but there was another part of him that was selfishly bitter that she had never even given him a choice, especially when she never much cared for him before.

"Why?" Robbie found himself asking before he could stop himself, and Jade tilted her head. "Do you care, I mean. You were never anything but horrible to me, you told me that I'd never make it out here. Why was it so important to save me?"

"A 'thank you, Jade' would be nice," She scoffed, boots clicking against the tile as she walked further into the room. "Look, I don't like you, but I wasn't about to just let you _die._ I'm not that terrible of a person, you know."

"But you _are_ terrible."

"Not denying it," Jade said, rolling her eyes. "It sucks about your arm, and I'm sorry - I really am. But if you're going to bitch and moan about me giving you a chance to keep living then you're just going to make life harder for yourself. It wasn't my goal to make you miserable, okay?" She huffed and crossed her arms, blue-green eyes boring into his. "When I told you that you wouldn't survive, I meant it. You won't when you keep acting like this. You can't afford to sit around feeling sorry for yourself because you're not going to get any better that way, and that's what gets you killed. You have to push through it and be strong, whether you like it or not. And let's face it. This," she pointed sharply where his arm should be, "is better than the alternative."

Robbie's fingers brushed lightly over the gauze wrapped around his arm. It was just thick enough that he didn't feel any more pain than what he was already experiencing when his fingertips grazed the fabric, but it felt strange and foreign that his forearm was no longer there at all. "Maybe, but I just don't understand how everyone can be so positive all the time. I thought you were the world's biggest pessimist."

"We're not," Jade said, averting her gaze. "Every single one of us were sure that you would die, you know. Even Cat and Tori. And I'm a realist, clearly you're the pessimist here."

He didn't say anything. Robbie wasn't much in the mood for talking anymore; since he'd woken up, all he was feeling was exhaustion and pain, and all he wanted to do was sleep until he didn't feel weak anymore.

Jade seemed to get the hint, and he thought she looked a bit relieved to leave an awkward situation. "I'll send Mrs. Vega in," she said. "She wants to keep an eye on you."

"Okay."

She lingered in the doorway for a moment, her back turned to him and her fingers curled into loose fists at her sides. When she spoke, her voice lacked it's usual venom, and she glanced over her shoulder and offered him a smirk. "Man up."

* * *

"Why are you sitting so far away?"

Sam glanced up at her as Cat approached, footfalls soft against the grass. Her friend was sitting with her back against the trunk of a palm tree, forearms resting over her bent knees. The others sat around a small fire in the middle of the courtyard of her old high school, all except for Mrs. Vega, who had gone to stay inside and watch over Robbie to make sure that he was alright.

"Dunno," Sam said, shrugging lethargically. "I guess I just wanted space to think."

"Oh," Cat breathed, fiddling with the sleeves of a striped black and gray zip-up hoodie. It was André's - he'd offered it to her when she got a little chilly - and far too big for her, the sleeves much too long and baggy for her arms and hanging over her hands. Jade had said that it looked like a dress on her, but it was comfortable and warm, so Cat didn't mind. "Did you want me to go, then?" She asked, chewing at her bottom lip. While she didn't want to disturb her, she also selfishly didn't want Sam to send her away, either.

Sam pursed her mouth for a moment, considering, before she patted at the ground beside her. "Nah," she said. "I could use some company."

Cat was unable to abstain from smiling as she sat down beside her, their shoulders touching, and was grateful for the cover of the nighttime when her cheeks flushed pink at Sam's returned grin. "So," Sam begun, "how's puppet boy doing?"

" _Robbie_ is…" Cat trailed off, unsure of how she could answer. Her friend was clearly _not_ fine, hardly managing what had happened to him well at all, as understandably expected, and Cat was never much one for lying. "Alive?"

"Are you asking me or are you telling me?"

She rolled her eyes, pushing against Sam's shoulder with her own lightly. "He's upset," she said, worry gnawing at her heart. Robbie was one of her closest friends, and it hurt her to see him hurting. She just wanted him to be okay. "I tried to talk to him and make him feel better, but I never really know if I'm saying the right thing or not. I'm not very good with words, my thoughts are always too jumbled up," she admitted, shaking her head and playing absently with a strand of brown hair as her eyes cast down.

"Oh come on, yes you are," Sam argued with a snort of disbelief. "You don't give yourself enough credit. I suck at talking, you're actually pretty good at it. And anyway, I don't blame him, it sucks, but he'll survive."

"That's what Jadey said," Cat remarked, and Sam made a noise of agreement in her throat. Suddenly overcome with a need to be close to someone, physical affection always being a source of comfort for Cat, she hooked one of her arms around Sam's and rested her head against hers, snuggling close despite Sam's noises of protest. Sam was only a few inches taller than her, so it wasn't uncomfortable; it was familiar and warm, and she thought back to all the times they slept curled together on the dusty floor of the garage, waking up with aching limbs and Cat snuggled up to Sam's back.

"Not a hugger," the blonde said, though her voice lacked conviction and she did not move away.

There was a moment of silence between them, and Cat stared ahead of them at her friends sitting in a circle around the fire. Beck leaned to poke at it with a stick, and the embers fell as the fire crackled and popped, burning steadily. Occasionally, Tori turned to glance over at them curiously, but no one had beckoned them back over.

Their voices were low murmurs, faces solemn and serious, no traces of anything else. Cat wondered what they were talking about: if not Robbie, it was most likely food, or figuring out the sleeping arrangements and what to do with all the dead bodies.

It was a terrible feeling to look at them, the people she'd loved for years, and feel like a stranger.

"Hey, Cat?"

Cat raised her head and glanced over. Sam was watching the other's as well, her blonde hair reflecting bright beneath the moonlight. "What's up, buttercup?"

"Earlier, back in the gym," Sam begun, clearing her throat. "You sort of saved my life. So I just wanted to say, you know, thanks."

She quirked an eyebrow. "It was about time I saved you for a change," Cat said, poking her side with her index finger and giggling quietly. "We have each other's backs, remember? Besides, what would I possibly do without my Puckle?"

"I keep telling you it's Puckett," Sam remarked, her tone exasperated but a smile on her face nonetheless.

"Puckle is better."

"Whatever you say, Cupcake," Sam shook her head and turned her gaze back to the others at the fire, lowering one of her hands against her thigh. Cat bit lightly at the inside of her cheek, weighing the pros and cons of saying something that maybe she shouldn't, before ultimately deciding against saying nothing at all.

"You don't have to be alone, you know," Cat said softly, her fingertips brushing down the length of Sam's arm until they reached her hand.

Sam's expression as she met her eyes again was unreadable, and Cat was suddenly very hyper-aware of how close their faces were, and how easy it would be to lean up until there was no more space between them left. "I'm not alone anymore," she said. Her eyes flickered down, lashes fluttering against her cheeks and heavy-lidded as she stared at Cat's lips, her voice a murmur. "With you, I'm not."

It was so simple, what she said, but it struck something in Cat that made her move. No one had ever outright told her that her presence had made a difference before. Everyone always seemed to forget her; her parents, mostly, her brother and sometimes her friends, and Cat had long ago become accustomed to lingering in the shadows of everybody else, unnoticed and unimportant. Yet those four words made her feel special, light, and with a sharp intake of air Cat reached to cup Sam's cheek and leaned forward to close the gap between them.

Everything about Sam was rough. The way she held herself, the brash way she spoke when she was angry, the bruised knuckles and the past that made her that way. But her lips were soft, and they were wet with the taste of salt and the traces of the canned peaches she'd eaten for dinner. Cat's eyes closed automatically, fingertips featherlight against Sam's skin. Sam hesitated, shocked, before her lips slowly responded against her own, gliding together and warm and _right_.

Finally, after a moment, Sam pulled away, their mouths making a soft noise as they parted. Sam's eyebrows dipped, just slightly, and Cat's cheeks heated up in embarrassment. One look at her face and Cat wasn't sure if Sam wanted to kill her or kiss her again.

Mind screaming that she had just messed everything up, Cat pulled her arm from Sam's. "I'm - I'm sorry, I just -" she stuttered over her words like her tongue stopped working. She stood, a little hastily. "I-I'll go. I'm so sorry."

Sam rose to her feet as well and reached out to snag her wrist. "Hey, you don't have to leave."

"But I just-"

"Did something that should've been done a long time ago," Sam finished, and her grip around Cat's wrist loosened but her fingers didn't leave. "It's okay, Cat," she said, though she sounded a little nervous. "It's okay."

* * *

 **small update before we get the plot moving again! don't worry, there are upcoming bade moments coming soon.**

 **thank you all for your reviews! please continue to send your thoughts/predictions xx**


	10. Chapter 10

**sorry for the lateness! I had a busy week, and then I went to a pride festival this weekend, so writing sort of took a backseat. enjoy!**

* * *

 **chapter ten**

"Man, this sucks."

Beck, with the help of André, lugged another body by its ankles onto the pile and straightened his back, patting his hands on his faded jeans to get the grime off. They had been dumping the dead littered around Hollywood Arts at the back of the school, a good distance away from the buildings, since the sunrise, and the sun scorched down on their bare shoulders mercilessly. Having lived in Los Angeles for years, Beck had long ago become accustomed to California heat, but it was times like this where the Canadian in him wished for some snow. Or air conditioning.

"I know," Beck said, wiping his brow with the back of his hand. His dark hair clung to his skin, damp with sweat. "But it's gotta be done. The RV isn't big enough for everyone to sleep in again; it's too cramped. Plus...me and Jade like our privacy, you know?"

André shook his head. "Sorry to cramp your style," he said indifferently, hitting Beck's arm lightly with his knuckles as they made their way back to the gym. Jade exited through the open doors just then, her face blank, something dangling limply from her hand.

 _Robbie's arm._

He paused as she briefly met his eyes and continued toward the pile of dead bodies they were planning on burning that afternoon, and threw the arm in the midst of them with a scowl. There had been a flicker of something indecipherable in Jade's eyes that had made him falter - he wasn't sure what it was, but it made him feel slightly uncomfortable. He had never felt that way around her before, he it struck him as odd that he did now.

Jade dusted off her hands, smacking them together, and when she caught the both of them looking, pulled a disgruntled face and quirked her pierced brow. " _What?_ "

"Uh...nothing," André said hastily, wiping his sweaty palms over his jeans. "Nothing at all."

"Someone help me get Lane," Jade huffed, ignoring his apparent nervousness. Although she didn't clarify who, her gaze met Beck's instinctively, and he nodded in return. She turned back to André. "Mr. Vega and Sam are in there digging through pockets, trying to find anything worth keeping, like ammo or weapons." She pointed toward the gym. "They need another set of hands."

Beck patted André on the shoulder as they parted ways, and followed Jade back to the BlackBox theater in a chilly silence. She'd been in a sour mood since she woke up, sardined into the corner of his bed in the RV where everyone had spent the night. They had originally planned to camp out in the courtyard, where it was considerably safer and more spacious - until it started storming. Cleaning up bodies, he figured, had done nothing to improve her mood; and he couldn't exactly blame her. He'd woken up with an arm in his face after only three hours of sleep. After David had come in and switched with Sam to keep watch, his snoring had kept Beck up most of the night.

"Where's Cat?" He asked, voice wedging a knife in the quiet between them. "I thought she was with you."

Jade's expression didn't change. "She was, but Mrs. Vega and Tori needed help cleaning up in the cafeteria, so she went with them after a while." She shrugged. "They're trying to ration all the food that was left in the kitchen that won't make us sick if we eat it. I told her to go. It's more important than cleaning up blood off of the floor."

"Oh, alr-"

"I did the right thing, didn't I?" Jade asked suddenly, coming to an abrupt halt in the middle of the hallway. He faltered and turned around to face her; her arms were crossed tightly over her chest, dark brown hair flicked over her shoulders in waves. Everything about her was rigid with tension. "With Rob, I mean."

Beck's eyebrows dipped down in confusion. "Of course you did, babe. He's alive because of you," he said, no hint of hesitation in his voice. "What brought this on?"

Jade pursed her lips in consideration, and he detected a flash of vulnerability in her eyes. "Well, he's not very grateful about it, for starters," she begun, her expression indifferent if not for the slight furrow of her eyebrows. "You better not tell anybody else I said this, but it got me thinking that maybe...he might, _possibly,_ be right. Maybe I just fucked everything up for him. I thought I was giving him a chance but - _I don't know,_ okay? I don't know."

"So, what, you're saying that you think you should have just let him die?" Beck asked incredulously, shaking his head as he took a few instinctive steps toward her. Jade stared pointedly at the lockers to the left of them - where Tori's was - and he reached to lightly grab her chin between his thumb and his index finger, turning her face to meet her eyes, speaking softly and confidently. "That's not you talking. You've never doubted your judgement before, or your gut. You trust in yourself and in your decision making; you wouldn't just let him suffer, as much as anybody else may think you would. But I know you better than anybody else, and I know that's not who you are. He just lost a limb, he almost _died._ Robbie will just need some time to adjust to his trauma. It's going to be a hard road for him, but he'll come around. You can't blame yourself, and you shouldn't feel responsible."

He stared directly into her eyes; they flickered between his own, a thousand shades of hazel, speckled blue and gold. Beck was often captivated by them, how much depth and emotion was in them that she often didn't show. They spoke volumes when she couldn't bring herself to. Beck always knew what she was feeling by looking into those eyes.

Eyes were the windows to the soul, after all.

Jade shook her head, and he could tell that although that doubt had ebbed away, she was unconvinced. "How could I not feel responsible if something happens?" She asked, shifting on her feet. "If he dies because of this, that's on me. As much as I don't like that nerd, I don't exactly want his death on my conscious."

"And it would have been if you didn't take action when you did," Beck countered, the pad of his thumb brushing lightly against her cheek. "It's not like you to doubt yourself, Jade. You're always saying that there's no room for it, especially not now. Don't second guess yourself because Robbie's upset. I believe you did the right thing. So does Cat and Dre and everybody else. If you don't trust in your own judgement, trust in ours. We would have lost a friend back there if it wasn't for you."

She took a deep breath through her nose, her eyes squinting at him studiously, as if trying to detect any sign of falsehood. After a moment, she sighed in defeat. "Whatever," she said, and Beck smiled because it was so typical of her. "Come on, let's go. Lane's rotting away in there and it smells awful." Jade grabbed his hand, fingers tight around his but familiar and warm, and pulled him in for a lingering kiss before tugging him down the halls and to the theater.

* * *

While the cleanup of the school to make it habitable was underway and nearly complete, after a day of nonstop hard work and physical labor, the group found themselves again in the courtyard, eating canned food they brought with them from Bakersfield around a fire. With four walls surrounding them, there was no where else that felt like a safer place to set up camp before making Hollywood Arts their home - a precious, time consuming ordeal that would likely take a few days, give or take.

André didn't mind sleeping outside. Although less comfortable than Beck's RV, where he and Jade would surely be headed to sleep later as they always did, Los Angeles air was warm this time of year and without the pollution and gas the stars were a sight he could stare at forever.

Mr. Vega was sitting a little ways to André's side beside Trina and Tori, who was sitting close to André's left. His wife was inside checking on Robbie again - he was too weak from blood loss to join them outside, still. "Everyone has been doing good work these last two days," he said, authoritative voice cutting through the quiet conversations, effectively silencing them all. "I'm proud of what we've accomplished in such little time, especially under the circumstances and with such a large area to canvas. But we need to talk about the elephant in the room."

To his right, André heard Cat quietly ask, "What elephant?" to Sam, but her naive question had gone unheard.

"Which is?" Tori questioned, her shoulder leaning against his as she reached for another spoonful of peanut butter. André didn't often share his peanut butter with anyone else - Cat was allergic to nuts and everybody else was greedy and would eat it all on him like they always had before the world changed - but he had found that Tori was an exception he was willing to let slide.

"Guns," Mr. Vega said.

"Ooh, I like where this is going," Jade commented, tucked into Beck's chest, her lips pulling up into a smirk. André thought she looked sinister with the way the orange flow of the fire flickered over her face, but didn't dare comment.

"What about guns?" Beck asked, adjusting one of his fingerless gloves as he reached to put an empty tin of canned fruits off to the side with a soft _clank._

David shifted and prodded at the burning logs with a stick. "We need them, and ammunition," he clarified. "Knives and the other weapons aren't going to cut it in the long run, and the guns we do have now will be useless without ammo. We have to be prepared for anything: more herds, trouble with another group, anything at all, and creating an armory should serve as a top priority. Now, we had them before, but after what happened -" Beck averted his gaze, and André suspected he was still sour about what happened with the soldiers, "we're short on them, and we'll just have to find another way to get more."

"Hollywood police precinct is out of the question," said Jade. "We ransacked that place."

"Most community departments are probably wiped clean. We could try firing ranges, maybe?" André suggested helpfully, shrugging.

"Well, there is the Collector's Armoury in Culver City on Sepulveda Blvd, or the one on Washington," Cat piped up matter-of-factly, and when everyone paused and slowly turned to stare at her with questioning gazes, her cheeks flushed pink under the orange reflection of the fire. "I've passed them a lot on the way to the doctor's office. And, well, my brother also tried to rob one with a paintball gun..."

" _Okay,_ " Mr. Vega interrupted, regarding her with a strange look. "Cat...since you're so oddly attuned to weaponries, would you be willing to take some of us there to have a look around tomorrow?"

"Sure!" Cat said, smiling brightly. Beside her, Sam frowned slightly. "I love adventures."

David nodded, his gaze shifting back and forth from Beck and Jade. "You two are usually our scavengers, but this time I'm only asking one of you to come along with us. We need as much people here as possible to keep watch and help the others. This should be a quick trip, we don't want a rerun of what happened last time."

"I'll go," Jade offered haughtily, before Beck could even get the chance to open his mouth. André couldn't say he was very surprised by Jade immediately jumping at the chance to get away from everybody else, but Beck looked as if he didn't quite agree.

"Are you sure, babe?" He asked skeptically, brows pinched together. "I'd feel safer with you here-"

Jade scoffed and rolled her eyes. "I'm not a baby, Beckett, I can take care of myself. Plus, I'll be going with a former _police officer_ , it'll be fine." She tilted her head, and her tone was slightly smug. "Besides, I'd rather not be stuck here with Vega and Vega Senior all day without someone to keep me from going batshit insane."

"Hey! Don't be such a gank!" Trina protested shrilly, but Jade waved her off dismissively.

"Whatever."

David pinched the bridge of his nose between his fingers, his expression pained. "Great. We'll head out early tomorrow morning, it's a long drive from here." He stood, kicking dirt into the small fire with his boot. The flames flickered, progressively growing smaller. "I'm going to go check on my wife and Robbie and fill them in on the plan. Everybody else should get some sleep. We have another busy day ahead of us."

* * *

 **you guys know the drill, please leave a review with your thoughts/predictions! I really appreciate getting them. except nonconstructive criticism. don't leave those. also! be sure to check out my new multi-chapter story, Against The Odds :)**

 **xx**


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